


C: \Users\Flo>start “Worst Case Scenario”_

by SteelRigged



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drama & Romance, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Summer of Olicity, olicity - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-09-29
Packaged: 2018-11-19 03:08:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 30,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11304465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SteelRigged/pseuds/SteelRigged
Summary: Oliver is kidnapped. In order to save him, Felicity offers herself in trade. It's his worst case scenario. Or at least it feels like it. The more Oliver works to unravel the problem and get his girl back, the more he realizes that nothing is as it seems...





	1. Chapter 1

It was late for a press conference, well after 10:00pm, but late nights were normal at City Hall these days. This couldn’t be put off. The latest kidnapping victim had just been returned and TMZ already had footage. Jimmy Bamford was the first baseman for the Star City Archers. He’d disappeared right before a game and the entire city had thrown a tantrum demanding that Mayor Queen _Do Something!_

Oliver was trying. He rewound the TMZ footage and watched it again. Bamford was shaky and confused.

“Where is she?” he roared. “He said she’d be here. He said if I brought the money she’d be here! Dirty liar...I should have known.” Bamford turned around mumbling and pressing at his ear. “Detective! Detective where are you?! It’s a trick! The ass-butt tricked us.” It was only then that the baseball player noticed the camera filming him. “Who are you?," Bamford demanded. "Are you in on it. Where’s my girl? Give her back or I’ll kill you! I swear!” He charged. The camera jostled as the man carrying it ran backward. When the view turned back to Bamford he was collapsing. He clutched at his head, fell to his knees, and smashed to the pavement with blood coming out of his nose.

Bamford had been rushed him to the hospital, but his body was well into shock. His brain was bleeding, just like the other kidnapping victims, and he was quickly put into a medically induced coma. The medical goal was to try and limit any potential brain damage. Oliver couldn’t argue with that. But comas made it hard to interview victims. So he rewound the TMZ tape and started it again.

Bamford was the third high profile kidnapping in the last month. The first had been the Fletcher Bank president, Wendy Mericle. It had been big new when she disappeared. It was even bigger news when the top surgeon at the hospital, Mark Guggenheim, had also vanished But neither of those crimes had incited public’s fury like the kidnapping of Bamford, a celebrity athlete. The Star City Archers were one of the few things the whole city was proud of. The team might not have been national champions, but they were solid performers, scandal free, and really cared about their fans.

There was a loose pattern to the all kidnappings. Oliver reviewed it again. All three victims had been returned after their bank accounts had been drained, but none of their families had received ransom requests. Or any other communication, for that matter. The kidnapper(s) must have been getting account numbers and passwords from the victims themselves. Torturing it out of them somehow. Both Mericle and Guggenheim had been found in near catatonic states. Brain bleeding and medical comas, that was part of the pattern. The complication was that none of victims had obvious injuries: no abrasions, no bruises, no contusions. They’d even had clean toxicology tests. Oliver knew a lot about torture, but he didn’t know how to abuse someone so badly their brain started bleeding without leaving any trace that they’d even been touched.

His instinct was that these were crimes of greed and opportunity. It didn’t seem like there was a connection between the victims other than the fact that all three were wealthy and prominent. But there weren’t many clues to work with. Neither Mericle or Guggenheim had been able to give a statement. The families knew nothing because they’d never been contacted. Felicity was attempting to trace the bank transfers, but most of the money was withdrawn to cash. There should have been surveillance video of those withdrawals, but every single one was corrupted.

Thea knocked on the doorframe breaking his reverie. “It’s time Mr. Mayor,” she said.

Oliver nodded and froze the tape. Bamford’s ravings were the first break they’d really gotten and it made no sense. He was talking as if someone else had been kidnapped, as if he was paying off a ransom. It made Oliver wonder exactly what trauma could have caused that kind of psychotic break. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, and grabbed his suit jacket off the back of a chair.

“Fair warning," Thea said. "The press is livid.”

Oliver shrugged on his coat with a sinking feeling. “He’s back. That’s good news right?”

“We aren’t going to win a pennant with our first baseman in a coma,” Thea replied as she fell in step with him in the hallway.

Oliver frowned. “We can't put a baseball trophy ahead of a man's life.”

“You can’t.” 

Oliver could see the glare of TV lights before they rounded the corner. He stopped and took a breath. Thea gave him a wry smile and straightened his tie. This wasn’t going to be pleasant. He’d been rooting for the Archers, too.

“For the record,” Thea said, patting his arm, “I don’t want to be a brain dead vegetable. That happens to me, pull the plug. For real this time.”

“That is not happening to you. I already feel sorry for anyone that even tries to kidnap you. ”

“Aw,” Thea said with a smile. “That might be the sweetest thing you ever said to me, big bro.” She held open the door, and ushered him out toward the reporters.

# # #

Hours later, Oliver was still at the Mayor’s office. He didn’t look up until his phone rang, realizing only then that it was somewhere after three in the morning. He answered it already feeling a bit embarrassed.

“You were supposed to be home an hour ago,” Felicity said. “You didn’t go out on patrol without back-up did you?”

Oliver leaned back in his chair and fiddled with the button on his blazer. “I’m sure you’ve pinged my phone and know exactly where I am.” He didn't mention that she said she'd expected him at _home_

“Yes. But this says you are still at the office. And I just don’t believe that.”

“The press took longer to clear than I thought they would, and then Thea brought some of the families in. I talked to them,” he sighed, “as best I could. And then the first police reports about Bamford arrived.”

“Anything useful?”

“No,” he rubbed his chin.

“The tox screen?”

“Nothing.”

He could hear her gritting her teeth even through the phone. He knew that her favorite theory right now was that someone was using a vertigo knockoff on the kidnapping victims. But they hadn’t found any traces of anything that even remotely resembled vertigo.

“That TMZ footage is bothering me,” Oliver said.

“Because it’s sad and disturbing?”

“I feel like I’m missing something really obvious.” 

Felicity exhaled with gentle exasperation. “Come home, Oliver. Eat. Sleep. We’ll tackle it together in the morning.”

Oliver’s lips twitched up in a smile. “Yes, Ma’am.” 

# # #

The halls were quiet and dark as Oliver closed and locked the door to his office. He nodded at the janitor who nodded back at him.

He got into the elevator his mind still buzzing with the problems of the case. In a lot of ways this seemed like a organized crime. A mafia kind of thing. But, he’d already shaken down his various contacts and none of the obvious suspects were involved: not the Triad, the Bratva, or the good old Cosa Nostra.

That in itself seemed odd. These were not low resource jobs. Holding a hostage required space and guards. And the way the bank accounts were drained? There was definitely some computer expertise involved.

Oliver woke up a bit to his surroundings as he approached his Ducati. There was a kid, some college boy, smoking a cigarette and admiring the bike. City Hall was downtown, and it wasn’t that uncommon for drunk clubbers to duck into the parking garage. They usually didn’t get to this particular level, though.

The kid was wearing baggy jeans, a Marvel movie T-shirt, a canvas jacket, and bangs in his eyes. He flinched when he saw Oliver and dropped his cigarette stomping it out like he’d been caught by the principal. The kid wasn’t any kind of physical threat. Oliver wondered briefly if he’d looked that pathetic and nervous as a frat boy.

“Hard night?” Oliver asked.

“We’ll I was expecting to meet someone after the press conference, and they kinda didn’t show.”

Oliver smirked. “If you’re trying to date a reporter, you should know that you will never be more important than a deadline.”

The kid huff out a laugh. “Ha, yeah, well. Wish I’d known that a few hours ago. Then again, if it’s worth waiting for, it’s worth waiting for.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Oliver said.

He took a step closer to the motorcycle.

“So you really do ride that?” the kid asked. “I mean I know that you’re the mayor, and that this is the mayor’s parking spot, but like, it just, you know, seems like you should have some conservative town car. Or something.”

“This is something,” Oliver replied with a sly smile. He threw his leg over the saddle and settled comfortably in place.

“That it is,” the kid agreed with admiration. “It’s totally blowing my mind right now that you actually are as cool as the papers make you out to be.”

Oliver let the compliment roll past. He didn’t really think much about how the papers portrayed him. That tended to be Thea’s domain. If anyone ever said anything "cool" about him, she'd probably planted it.

“It’s nice to meet you…?” Oliver said holding out his hand.

“Likewise” said the kid. He shook Oliver's hand but didn’t give his name. Oliver furrowed his brow slightly, a barely there thought tickling at the back of his neck. The kid leaned in “I have a theory about those kidnappings, you know.” The kid bit his lip and looked around nervously. “Alien abduction,” he whispered.

“I doubt that,” Oliver replied. His sudden sense of misgiving resolved quickly. He decided that the kid was just a little more high or drunk than he’d originally seemed. He wasn’t anything the normal security couldn’t handle, though. Oliver ended the handshake.

The kid shrugged and stepped back. Oliver slid his helmet on, and started revving the bike.

“I think it’s possible,” the kid said raising his voice to be heard over the engine. “It’s a worst case scenario, but totally possible.”

Oliver’s head suddenly started throbbing. The world tilted and throbbed with psychedelic halos. Oliver had just enough time to think, _there’s something in my helmet,_ before everything went completely black.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing quite goes as expected.

Oliver woke up in a dark room. His head still throbbing. There was a man sitting in a folding chair watching him. The man looked related to the college kid. An older brother maybe. Or a first cousin. Oliver took that as circumstantial proof that this was an organized crime problem, just a family he didn’t know yet.

Oliver’s hands were bound, but not in any way that really restricted him. His first feeling was relief. He was finally going to get to the bottom of the kidnapping ring. He blinked while taking in the room and tried to look terrified.

“Welcome Mayor Queen,” the man said. “I’m glad you could join us. You can call me _The Specialist._ ”

Oliver pressed his lips together. The man was wearing a dark purple blazer with pinstripes, a silk shirt with a almost iridescent white on off-white print, white skinny jeans, and saddle shoes. His hair was a perfect sandy wave that didn’t move. He looked like an ineffective used car salesman, and Oliver didn’t believe for a second that he had any type of code name. Let alone one like “The Specialist.” 

“Who do you work for?” Oliver asked.

“I can’t just tell you,” the man said with a small, giddy, smile. “That’s against the rules. But I’m sure if you think about it you’ll figure it out.”

“What do you want?”

“Everything. All the secrets of City Hall. Every last bit of political dirt you know. And, of course, your money.”

“Why?”

“Why does anyone want money? At this particular instant I’m thinking of buying myself a top of the line Italian motorcycle.” The Specialist rubbed his hands together greedily.

“And the political info?”

“Well every good run has to come to an end sometimes. I want a little insurance. _We_ want a little insurance,” he shrugged.

Oliver cocked his head to the side and considered the possibility that the kidnappings had been a small time operation after all. Just one or two guys grabbing the most prominent people they could. The lure, that dorky kid, and then the heavy, this guy. _This guy?_ Oliver wanted to dismiss the thought as soon as he had it. It didn’t really seem possible. 

It also didn’t explain why Bamford had been delusional. Nor did it explain how three people had ended up with severe brain swelling. This guy, if he was anything, was just a mouth piece. 

“You put something in my helmet. What was it?” Oliver asked.

The Specialist smiled at him and leaned forward, the sleeves of his purple jacket pulling up revealing the cuffs of his shirt. They gleamed like mother of pearl when he leaned into the light.

“Right to the point, Mr. Mayor! I like that. But I can’t help you. All of our technology is proprietary. Patent pending and such.”

Oliver tried to swallow his disdain. “Are you the same...outfit...that kidnapped everyone else?”

“Guilty as charged. It’s a short and exclusive list and you should be proud to be on it. I’m certainly excited to have you here Mr. Mayor. Since you are such a direct and intelligent guy, let me tell you how this is going to work. You tell me everything I want to know. As long as you cooperate with me, things will run smoothly. But if you resist, if you fight back, if you lie to me, then everything will go wrong for you. The worst case scenario that you can imagine. Whatever horrors are creeping around in the corner of your mind, they are all going to come true. I have a main line into your cranium here,” he tapped Oliver’s forehead, “I will get everything I want, and you are going to help me get it.”

Oliver snorted. “You know as far a villain speeches go, that was really canned and unoriginal. 2 out of 10 for effort. I mean, I’m trying to play it up, but nothing about you frightens me,” he chuckled.

The Specialist looked disappointed. He leaned back into his folding chair and crossed his arms over his chest in a pout. “You think you can do something? Go ahead and try it. Believe me, there is nothing you can do that will get you out of this. I’ve got every possibility covered.”

“Really?” Oliver asked, still amused.

“Really,” The Specialist replied. He seemed actually confident.

Oliver sighed. “Look, I know how pushy family can be, and I get it. The pressure of trying to live up to expectations, it can lead a man to do a lot of stuff that he’s not really proud of. So, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” the man spat angrily, “I don’t need your pity.”

“Okay,” Oliver said, standing up and dropping the cuffs on the floor in front of him. “Offer of sympathy withdrawn.”

With a lightning fast punch Oliver hit the man hard enough to send him skidding across the floor. The metal chair clattered loudly as it hit the ground. Oliver rolled up his shirt sleeves and made his way over to the only door to the room. He tested the lock, and then broke it, pushing down on the knob until the cheap wood of the door cracked and gave way. 

He cracked his neck and stepped out into the hallway, curious to find out exactly what kind of organization he was dealing with.

# # #

The bag over his head blocked all light, so Oliver couldn’t see the face of the man talking to him. That didn’t mean he was completely in the dark. They were in some kind of town car, leather seats rumbling along a gravel road. There were no ambient city noises that he could track. This was either the start of a prisoner exchange or an execution. His wrists, knees, and ankles were shackled. The car rolled along the quiet road.

“I have to admit Mr. Mayor, you were not what we were expecting. I, personally, expected the Green Arrow to have a much lower profile alter ego,” The Specialist said.

“You had a lot of security for someone who wasn’t expecting me,” Oliver replied. It had been three weeks, maybe four, since his first escape attempt. He couldn’t be entirely certain. Ever since he’d put on that damn motorcycle helmet things had been going down hill. There were chunks of time Oliver simply couldn’t account for.

“Well that’s why I’m not in charge. The man setting the rules here, he knows exactly what you’re capable of. If he didn’t you would have gotten away in one of your 4 attempts.”

“Five.”

“Five?”

“It’s five attempts,” Oliver said as he kicked the back of the driver's seat with both feet. The car lurched and spun out. Oliver was thrown against the door. He pulled at what seemed to be a handle and rolled out into the open air, blind and shackled. He heard bone crunching as he hit the ground. It had been just him and The Specialist in the car. He could have ended that fight even as hobbled as he was. But even before he heard the car skidding to a stop and then there were boots all around him. New guards that appeared out of nowhere. Oliver had started to suspect that his captors were psychic. They always seems to know what he was about to do. They reacted too quickly. It wouldn't be the weirdest thing he'd ever dealt with. He rolled onto his back in surrender. His injured ribs burning with pain.

“God. You never cease to surprise me. I'm going to regret getting rid of you!” The Specialist said.

“Are you finally going to kill me then?” Oliver asked, licking blood off his lip.

“No. That was never the solution. I still don’t have what I want. I mean, this is a great secret, but it’s not enough.”

“Money?”

“Oh yeah. I’m still going to get all of that. But also just _So. Much. More._ ”

“I will never cooperate.”

“Yes you will. Something will make you cooperate. There is something that will make you putty in my hands. Or should I say someone? Everyone has their weak points.”

Oliver grit his teeth. “So this is a prisoner exchange?”

“Recapturing you through force is getting repetitive, and dangerous to your health. So we are switching you out for a more manageable hostage.” The Specialist laughed. “You know, I really thought that this was just going to end with a ransom. I was certain that when we found the secret Queen “assets,” they’d be liquid.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

“I am not disappointed at all. What we are getting is so much better.”

“And what’s that?” 

“Knowledge is power, right?”

Oliver’s mind started racing. It was stupid of his captors to trade him. It was also new. None of the other kidnapping victims had been returned or exchanged. None of their families had ever even been contacted for ransom. It wasn’t much of a consolation that he’d rattled his enemy enough to make them change their M.O.

“I can’t wait to find out who shows up to get you,” The Specialist said.

“You don’t know?” Oliver asked. “So much for power”

“Remember I’m not the brains of this operation. But the man in charge?” The Specialist sounded almost gleeful as he talked about this secret boss. “He knows everything about you. Who you value, and why. So, you tell me. Who is it? Who’s the perfect linchpin? Here’s a hint, they volunteered.”

“What do you mean?”

“Exactly what I said. Someone offered to take your place.”

Oliver’s mind raced. Most of his team would probably volunteer. And all of them would be easier to hold. He considered each possibility in order of least terrible to most terrible. At the bottom of the list were Thea and Felicity. The two people he could least stand thinking of trapped the way he had been trapped. If it had been up to him to make the call, there is no way he could have done it. But given the way his luck was running, he didn’t really have any doubt who it was. 

“No,” Oliver said.

“No?”

“I won’t let you trade me for her.” 

“But it’s already done.” 

“I will hunt you down. I will end this operation, root and branch. You haven’t even begun to see what I can do.” 

“That sounds interesting,” The Specialist said. Oliver heard a gun being cocked and felt it press against his head. “Pull out all the stops, Mr. Mayor. I can’t wait to see what resources you’ve got squirreled away around town. It will be fun watching you back in the wild. And, of course,” the man with the gun said. “You won’t hunt us down. That’s the whole point of a hostage isn’t it? You’ll behave, for her sake. That’s the nature of the threat.”

“You really aren’t the brains here, are you?” Oliver retorted. The man growled in an angry response, which Oliver noted for future use. "I don’t trust you,” Oliver continued. “So why would I hold back if I think you are going to hurt her anyway?”

“We won’t hurt her. I’m sure we’ll be able to use much softer forms of persuasion.”

“Your word doesn’t mean much.”

“It’s amazing how you still think you're in a position to negotiate. What do you want, regular updates?”

"You should want to keep me calm," Oliver growled, a low angry rumble rising from deep in his chest. "You should go out of your way to keep me happy if your letting me go."

The Specialist started laughing again, “Fascinating.” 

In the silence that followed, Oliver could hear another set of wheels crunching on gravel. He could hear another set of doors opening and slamming shut. 

His mind revolted. Part of him didn’t want to believe the team would actually do it. That Digg would let Thea or Felicity trade herself for him. But, then again, how could he deny his own senses? The gun was shoved into his shoulder, pushing him forward and he resisted. _No,_ his brain said. _This isn't right_

He heard a woman’s steps on the gravel. He thought it was a woman. It was someone significantly lighter than him at least. He heard her squeak and then swallow the sound. She was walking forward. He started shuffling forward, too. Maybe they’d dressed Dinah up. That would work. And God, though he did not want his sister anywhere near this mess, she at least knew how to fight. It would be slightly less worse to have Thea at his side in the middle of a gun battle.

There was a thug clinging to his arm, but that barely registered with Oliver. The biggest variable in his next escape attempt, lucky number six, would be the woman walking toward him. She got closer. He got closer. Just as her shoulder brushed his, he took a step out of line and let his body run into her body. It wasn’t a light hit, and Felicity let out a loud “Oof,” confirming his worst fears. 

Oliver’s heart skipped a beat. His only consolation was his absolute certainty that the team wouldn’t have done this without a plan. Which meant they were all here. Which meant that they could adapt around her. He wasn’t alone. Not completely. He pivoted and “fell” into Felicity, knocking them both to the ground. His body on was top of hers, between her and the enemy. He could be a shield even with his hands tied behind his back. The gunfire started as soon as he moved but it stayed over their heads.

“Are your hands free?” he asked Felicity. He was shackled and hooded, but that didn’t mean she was.

She curled into his chest as soon as he spoke. “Oliver?”

Her hands were moving, against his lower belly. Their angle alone answered his question. Her hands were cuffed, basic cuffs, but they were in front of her. They climbed his torso, patting him down and searching him for injury. 

“Get this bag off my head,” he growled, and a moment later it was done. Felicity pulled his blind off, and then her own. Her glasses were skewed and her hair frazzled, pulled out of her ponytail in flyaway ends that stuck straight up. She was beautiful. Stunning.

“I knew you would do something like that,” she said. “Are you okay? The pictures they sent didn’t look good.” 

“We have to scramble,” he replied.

She nodded in agreement. He kept himself between her and the enemy. His head on a swivel. Digg and Curtis were firing at the people that had been holding him. The Specialist and his men were firing back. The ground ahead of Oliver and Felicity sloped downward, and down they went, crawling on their elbows. There was grass beside the road. After that was another sharp incline which rolled them to the edge of a brackish bog. It had the wet industrial smell of a retaining pond.

Felicity got to her feet first, struggling against the soft muddy ground, and then reached down to help him. He dislocated his thumbs and wiggled out of his cuffs. but that didn’t help with the chains on his legs. He couldn’t get her hands free without hurting her more than he was willing too. They needed to get away. They needed distance. He could already see that the curve of the shoreline wasn’t going to cooperate. It was going to push them back up toward the road whichever way they went.

Felicity must have seen the wheels turning inside his head.

“Second car,” she said. “Canary. Wild Dog. They were in a second car. It was trailing the van that picked me up.”

He nodded and let her take the lead. He moved as quickly as he could while shackled, a running shuffle that was only a quarter of his normal pace. Felicity was doing slightly better, but she was still slipping, unable to use her hands for balance in the slime. It was a terrible situation. But it could work, if they were determined, and lucky. The only thing that would make it worse was if--

“Stop right there!” A set of headlight flooded over them.

A man in a suit raised his gun and pointed it at them. It would be a semi-automatic weapon, Oliver thought. Because that was how this whole horrible escapade had gone so far. A handgun would have been too easy. 

“Oliver!” Felicity said grabbing his arm. She was looking the other way, and the way she clung to him let him know that they were surrounded. 

The Specialist stepped out of the weeds clapping slowly. “Six!” He sounded like a proud parent.

Oliver took a step toward the man with a snarl. He’d been tortured for days. He wasn’t in top form - and he was literally fighting hobbled. But now he was fighting with his team.

“We can still do the deal!” Felicity yelled. She put her back to his back, facing off against someone he couldn’t see. 

“No,” he said gruffly. He didn’t look at her. He kept his eyes on the threat. But he pushed himself back into her space, wanting to feel the long heat of her body against his. “I won’t let them take you.”

“I don’t know that either of us have much of a choice,” she replied quietly, her ponytail swishing against his back. Raising her voice she shouted back into the night, “I will go quietly! Just promise not to hurt him! You have to promise not to hurt him.”

The Specialist rubbed his chin as he paced. “You know if I had to pick someone in my life that would do what she’s doing… I don’t think I can name one person that I am absolutely certain would throw herself in front of the guns for me. And an ex at that.” He leered at Felicity. Then he smirked at Oliver. “You’re a very lucky man, Mr. Mayor. Or maybe a really unlucky man. I'm not totally sure.”

Oliver launched at the Specialist. He gave it his all, punching with everything he had, cartwheeling so that chain still connect to his ankles flew through the air like a whip, even flinging mud into his opponent's eyes. It worked. He had the stupid, infuriating man in choke hold within seconds. But while he was busy with The Specialist, two other goons had grabbed Felicity and carried her out of his reach. 

“You’re going to let us go, or I’m going to break your neck,” Oliver ordered.

“Don’t be so dramatic, Oliver,” The Specialist gasped. “There is only one way this scenario will be allowed to play out. She’s going to walk away with me, and you know it. I just have to say the right thing.” 

“You talk too much,” Oliver said, and then he squeezed. “Call off your men.”

“Still. Not. My. Game! Do you really think we’ll just walk away?”

Oliver felt a sting at his shoulder, and looked down to see a tranquilizer dart. He growled and moved to snap the man’s neck. The Specialist, at least, was taken care of. He dropped the idiot's limp and lifeless body and rallied to face off against the other men holding Felicity. He took one step forward, and stumbled. Oliver’s knees gave out beneath him. He tried to stand up. He tried to shake off the drugs, but they burned through his system.

“Oliver?” Felicity asked worried. “Oliver!?” She turned to the Specialist who was standing just behind her flanked by his goons. _Wait, that’s not right,_ Oliver thought. _I killed him._ He looked down at his own hands. They flickered and fuzzed, disappearing for a second, only coming back into focus when he made a fist. He dropped onto his wrists as the world spun around him. If he couldn't trust his own senses what was left?

“What did you do to him?!” Felicity asked, panic in her voice. She rushed to his side and pulled the dart out of his shoulder throwing it out into the water.

“He’ll sleep,” The Specialist answered. “Probably best if he doesn’t land face down, though.”

Felicity was trying to hold him up, but he was falling anyway. She couldn’t do much more than ease him to the ground. That meant she went down with him. Both of them in the mud with his head against her chest as she held onto him.

“So,” The Specialist continued, talking over Oliver’s head to Felicity. “Let’s talk about your offer. The drug is just to make sure that we get away without any further incident.” He stepped over Oliver’s legs and offered her his hand. “I promise not to hurt him.”

“No,” Oliver said again, but it came out slurred and muffled. 

Felicity wrapped her hands around his head. “I love you” she said, kissing his forehead, and he knew she was saying goodbye.

“No,” he squeezed the word out again, but she was slipping out from beneath him, laying him on the ground and walking toward the villain, the man he hated more than anyone else. Where the hell was the rest of the team? He needed to send up a flare, make some kind of scene, enough to draw Diggs attention. If only he could move. He listened as the car engines revved and started to pull away.

# # #

Dinah, of all people, found him first. She shouted for the team and then they were all there in seconds, but they were still there too late. 

“Why isn’t he moving?” Dinah asked.

“Drug,” Oliver ground the word out. Though it didn’t really sound like a word.

Diggle took his pulse. “Heart rate is slow. They must of got him with the same tranquilizer they hit Rene with.”

“On it,” said Curtis. There were sounds that Oliver didn’t totally follow. A slamming door that meant a car had to be close by. A prick in his neck that was probably some kind of antidote. A rush of air and cold into his lungs when he suddenly woke up and was able to move again.

“Felicity!” He said, grabbing the front of Curtis’s shirt, because Curtis was closest. “They took Felicity. Chase her!” He pointed off into the darkness. Digg cursed and took off running.

Dinah pulled a set of tools off her belt and attacked chain holding his feet together. Before long, he sloughed them off.

There was the sound of gunshot in the distance and everyone turned to look.

“She’s wearing a tracker,” Curtis said, and Oliver nodded. This he could understand. 

Digg raced back into the clearing. “They’re on the move. We’ve got to load up if we are going to catch them.”

“I’m on it,” Curtis said, pulling a glowing gadget out of his pocket and heading toward the car.

“For this, I’m driving” Dinah replied. “We don’t need stealth right now.” 

Digg reached down and pulled Oliver to his feet. “You look like shit,” Digg said. Oliver grunted, noncommittally. They scrambled back up the bank and into back seat of a car. “So the smart play,” Digg said, “would be that I run point and you cover me. But I don’t expect you to agree to the smart play any more than she did.”

Oliver glowered.

“Didn’t think so,” Digg said, and handed Oliver his bow. 

They caught up to the other car just outside the factory fence. Dinah fishtailed their van across the path of the nondescript black “bad guy” sedan and forced it into a concrete wall. Rene pulled up behind them.

“The signal’s still good,” Curtis said. 

Rene and Dinah gave cover.

Oliver and Digg strode to the other car. Oliver on point. Digg at his six. They opened the doors only to find that the car was empty.

“She’s not here!” Oliver shouted.

“Her signal is still coming from this car,” Curtis replied flustered.

Oliver walked to the trunk and popped it open. It was also empty. Almost. It had her clothes, purse, tablet, and phone.

“Curtis! They must have made her change,” Oliver said. “This is a decoy.”

“When could she have changed?” Digg grumbled.

“That shouldn’t matter,” Curtis said. “The transmitter was sub dermal.” 

Oliver picked up her shirt and it unrolled at his touch, revealing a long stripe of blood along the sleeve.

“Oh!” Curtis squeaked.

Oliver turned away from the car and back to his team. “Canary, Wild Dog, circle back to the exchange point. There must be tracks we missed. Find them.” 

Oliver heard the sound of engines and chopper blades high in the sky. His heart started sinking.

Curtis was murmuring to himself, fussing over his tablet. “Maybe her implant? It could have a residual signal...” He started typing. Oliver guided him to the back seat of the van and got in the driver seat himself. They pulled out and circled backward toward the exchange site.

There was a second set of tracks. They lead toward the lake, and toward what looked like a makeshift helicopter pad. 

Curtis started cursing.

“What’s wrong?” Oliver asks tightly.

“She’s disappearing,” Curtis moaned.

“You’ve got a signal!?” Oliver’s heart started beating again. “Which way is it headed?”

“No. It’s not a signal. It’s her. Felicity Smoak is being erased. Her entire digital footprint.”

“What?”

“It’s everything. It’s everywhere. The only person with the skill to erase Felicity like this….is Felicity,” Curtis said.

Oliver took a deep breath. This was not the time for fuzzy thinking. 

“If she’s got access to a computer, then she’ll send us a message right?” Digg said, always the voice of reason.

Phones started beeping. Digg’s. Curtis’s. Oliver didn’t have his.

Curtis pulled his out first, and pressed accept with a grim face. A little video of Felicity popped up. 

“Hi Curtis!” she waved. “So if you are getting this then our Plan A went bad. Plan B, too, I guess. Or C. Kinda depends on how it went bad and how bad it went. Long story short. I have some worms pre-programmed. If I get to check-in once a day they won’t run. So no news is good news. If on the other hand you see,” she swallowed “well let’s just say you’ll know it when you see it, cause I’m a badass right? I’m gonna go out fighting,” she looked frightened, and like she was trying not to look frightened. “But I don’t want to go out at all. Not if I can help it. So take care of my babies until I get back, ok? I’m trusting you to keep them all in working order.”

The recording stopped and fizzed out. Erasing itself as soon as it played. Curtis looked up at Digg, who frowned and then pressed play on the video on his own phone. 

“Hi Digg. If you are getting this message then everything went FUBAR. I packed some digital leverage, ask Curtis. So, I need you to trust me. And I need you to keep Oliver from doing anything stupid. I will get a message to you as soon as I can. And if I can’t, well, this was my choice. All my love.”

The second video fizzled out and erased itself, too.

Oliver looked up, scanning the area. He saw Canary and Wild Dog watching their own phones. He couldn’t stand it. He turned and walked away into the darkness. He started running. His mind racing. He wasn’t headed toward anything. He looked for the helicopter. Scanning the skies as if he could chase it to China on foot. Why did he think it went to China? How could he have missed a helicopter. He ran until his injured leg crumpled beneath him. He fell to the ground clutching at the dirt, digging his fingers into the ground.

What kind of world was this? Felicity had turned herself over to a brutal gang to buy his freedom and they didn’t know where she was, or how to get her back.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver starts his search for Felicity

Oliver used all his resources.

City Hall was buzzing with cops because the anti-crime unit was now required to provide Oliver with four updates every day, and each update was supposed to be personally approved by Lance. There was also extra security to keep out the reporters, the ones with unending pesky questions Oliver couldn’t really answer: _Why aren’t you in a coma Mr. Mayor? Was Miss Smoak taken because she fits the profile or because of her connection to you? Are the two of you an item again? How long have the two of you been and item?_

When he wasn’t at City Hall, Oliver beat the streets looking for information on the people that had kidnapped him and then taken Felicity. Digg, Canary, and Wild Dog worked the streets with him. Curtis, worked on comms, opening doors like Felicity would had done. They weren’t getting very far, though. It had been days, and they didn’t have any new leads. They hadn’t heard from Felicity. 

Oliver expected to hear from her. It was totally irrational, but still, every time his phone beeped there was a fleeting moment when he was absolutely sure it was going to be her.

At the end of another long night Oliver collapsed into her chair, unsure of what to do next. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. The hours of sleep he’d gotten since coming back could be counted on his fingers.

“Argus must have some idea,” Oliver pressed Digg, again. “These people have too many resources not to leave a footprint.”

“Lyla thought at first they were Triad, but now it looks like something different,” Digg replied. “Argus doesn’t know who it is. And what Argus did have is - disappearing," he sighed. "They’re tracing every internet anomaly related to Felicity that they can, but, if Felicity doesn’t want to be found…”

“She wants to be found, Digg,” Oliver said with conviction.

Digg tilted his head in acknowledgement without outright agreeing with Oliver. “What about Barry? Has he opened a breach and let any super villains in from Earth 2, or 16, or whatever?” Digg asked.

Oliver shook his head, “No. He says this isn’t a new metahuman either.”

“You don’t think this is just one person?” Curtis asked. “Even just one metahuman?”

Oliver rubbed his chin. “The handler who dealt with me mostly called himself The Specialist. He seemed almost psychic at times. I swear he knew what I was going to do as soon as I decided to do it. Whoever they were, they were definitely inside my head, which means it was either mystical or metahuman.”

“So organized crime is working with psychics now?” Rene quipped. “Why didn’t they know you were the Green Arrow?”

Oliver grimaced. “Someone did. There’s no other explanation for the security they had.”

“Are there metahumans that can duplicate themselves?” Dinah asked.

“I don’t know,” Oliver replied.

“Because all of those goons were really similar. Same height, weight, silent attitude,” she continued.

“I noticed that, too,” Curtis said.

“I’ll ask Barry to look into it,” Oliver agreed

“Did you tell him it was for Felicity?” Digg asked

“Of course,” Oliver replied. Oliver looked over his team. They looked exhausted. Especially the newbies. “Go home,” he said. “Get some rest. We’ll get a break soon. We have to.”

The kids, though it wasn’t really fair to think of them like that, all nodded and started gathering their jackets off the back of chairs. In a few moments the room was clear, only Oliver and Digg left. 

“You going to follow that order, too?” Digg asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

Oliver clenched his jaw, and swiveled away from his friend.

Digg sighed. “There’s no one else here, man, so just say what you’ve gotta say.”

Oliver stood up and stared Digg down. “How could you let her do this, John?”

“I couldn’t stop her. She made contact without telling me. When she makes up her mind to do something…” Digg shook his head clearly at a loss for what else to say. “She’s Felicity.”

“I didn’t want this. It would be better if they still had me.”

“I told her you’d say that. She said she had leverage.”

“How could she have leverage?” Oliver snarled, standing up and pushing into Digg’s space. Of all the excuses he’d been given that one irked him the most. She couldn’t have had leverage unless she’d known something about who these creeps were, and if she had known something she should have told someone! Left a note on her desk! Something! Digg didn’t answer the question, he just stood under Oliver’s glare until Oliver rolled his eyes and turned away.

“Oliver, she wanted to go weeks ago,” Digg said with a sigh. “I convinced her to put it off, and give you more time to escape. She waited. But those photos they sent. Every day. And every one was worse. She said that they wouldn’t treat her that way, because if you give a hacker a concussion it slows down their performance.”

Oliver closed his eyes and took a deep steadying breath. “That’s not comforting. You don’t know that they need a hacker.”

“I have to believe it,” Digg replied. “She believed it.”

“Because of a few red dots on the victims’ foreheads!?” Of all their working theories, this one seemed the most far-fetched to Oliver. 

“She was sure that The Specialist, I can’t believe that’s what he calls himself,” Digg muttered, “and his people had run into some kind of tech that they didn’t fully understand. That they were using it to get inside people’s heads.”

“I was all over that compound. I didn’t see any kind of special tech,” Oliver seethed.

“But there’s time you can’t account for?”

“Which could be anything!” Oliver argued. “Drugs, straight up physical damage,” he grit his teeth, “anything.”

Digg sighed and shook his head. “Felicity’s strong and brilliant and I have to believe she’s okay until we know different. They won’t hurt her if it hurts them. And whatever they want from you," he looked at Oliver pointedly, “they must know they won’t get it if she’s…” Digg looked away from Oliver, unable to finish his sentence against Oliver’s doubt. “Look, I barely got her to agree to a tracker and having the team drop her off,” Digg said rubbing his face, “and in the end she only went along with it because we both knew that as soon as you realized what was happening, you’d try and stop it. Which you did.”

Oliver collapsed back down into Felicity’s chair. “Digg….” The guilt washed over him. Digg helped Felicity with her crazy scheme because he thought she’d go alone. Digg also thought that it wouldn’t work, that Oliver would stop it. Get her out. And Oliver, he thought that was how it should have worked, too. He should have gotten her out of there. He didn’t know if he’d ever forgive himself for failing. He rubbed the heel of his hands against his eyes. “How did we miss a player this big?”

“We’re only human Oliver. They won’t be able to hide forever. We’re going to find her.”

Oliver couldn’t say anything back. Because it wasn’t just about finding her. It was about finding her before she was found wandering disoriented with brain damage.

Digg folded his coat over his arm and planted his feet looking at Oliver carefully. “You should try and sleep. It will clear your head.”

Oliver nodded non-committally. Digg squinted at him tilted his head.

“Have you watched your video yet?” Digg asked.

Oliver glared at him.

“So that’s a no.”

Oliver clenched his jaw. “As soon as I watch it, it’s gone. I don’t need to hear her goodbye. I need to find her.” 

“There might be a clue,” Digg replied.

Oliver turned away.

Digg gave Oliver a pat on the shoulder, and then shrugged into his coat. “And when we do find her, she’ll need you whole, and healthy, and in top form. So get some rest.”

With that piercing piece of brilliant advice, Digg left him alone. Oliver let his head loll back against Felicity’s chair. He closed his eyes and relished the silence of the lair. It was quiet enough that the small click of the computer turning on caught his full attention. He squinted at the screen as an image started to form. It was a stuttered signal, irregular and fuzzy with pixelated static, but it was also absolutely - completely - Felicity.

“I think-- I think I’m getting through--” she said. 

“Hello?!” he asked tapping at the keys, pulling the comm mic over to him. 

“Yeah, well, when was the last time you reprogrammed alien tech?” she said to someone he couldn’t see. “No. I don’t think it’s like that. It has to be using his own neurology against him.”

“Felicity!” Oliver barked. “Can you hear me?”

“Oh! Oh God! Oliver! Are you okay? Sorry dumb question, but--”

“I’m fine,” he replied. Feeling like it was true for the first time in weeks.

“You’re not fine,” she said sharply. 

He huffed out a laugh before he even realized it. “I’m healing,” he said honestly. Not that his condition mattered. “How are you? Have they hurt you?”

“Me? No. Nothing. Why? What did you see?” her voice was crackling with worry.

“Where are you?” he pushed “How do I get to you?”

“I’m working on that.”

There was a fritz in the static and Oliver saw The Specialist's face.

“There’s someone on the line,” he said coldly.

“Probably,” Felicity agreed. Her manner was nonchalant, but he could see the steel in her eyes. “It’s some kind of A.I. and it’s fast. But it’s not going to kick me out again. Not when I’ve finally made contact.” 

His heart froze in her chest. “Felicity, trading yourself for me was stupid enough, if they catch you hacking… even your leverage can’t be that good. You know how dangerous these people are.”

She blinked looking utterly baffled “What are you talking about?”

There was another fritz on the screen, a flurry of white pixels blurring out the face he longed to see.

“Oh no you don’t!” Felicity said, typing furiously, biting her lip with concentration.

Images of goons walking and stopping her started dancing in his head. He wasn’t sure that any of the guards he’d fought would actually care about avoiding concussions. Or not hurting her in some other way. The blood in his veins was suddenly spiked with ice. “Get off the line, Felicity, or I will disconnect here,” Oliver said, desperate. “I won’t put you in anymore danger.”

“This isn’t about me!?” She scowled.

“Just get me your location,” he begged. “Anyway you can. I will come and get you.” This crazy brave woman was going to give him a heart attack. He couldn’t take her being this reckless. Not now. 

“Oliver you don’t understand--”

The screen winked out. 

“Felicity? Felicity!” He yelled into the mic. Fighting his instinct to bang the screen until it brought her back. 

Oliver leaned back his heart racing. Felicity wasn’t acting like she was facing real danger. This was bad. Worse than he’d thought. 

He pulled out his phone and called Curtis. “Curtis! Felicity just made contact. I need you to come back and trace the signal.”

When he looked back over at the computer screen it wasn’t blank anymore. It had a picture of Felicity holding up today’s newspaper. She looked just like she had a few moments ago, but camera was set farther back. He could see her entire body, and therefore also the fact that she was sitting in a wheelchair. His hands clenched into fists.

It was his first update. The information he needed to avoid burning down the entire city. She was alive. She was vulnerable. She was trying to get back to him, too.

And she’d given him one other clue, this was about tech after all.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Double flashback, some mush, lots of angst.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is late. No real excuse except that people kept showing up and making me do things. Things that were not sitting at my keyboard. I will try and get the next update here faster.

After that first contact Oliver managed to sleep. Sort of. He found himself falling into a state of black oblivion, and when he re-emerged a few hours seemed to have passed. He didn’t dream though, not when he was asleep. Awake, he saw blonde ponytails everywhere. 

He’d be on the street, see a blonde ponytail, and find himself taking a dozen steps toward the woman before he realized that she couldn’t be Felicity. He saw doppelgangers. In the City Hall elevators, on the street behind dumpsters. Driving Cars. Just outside his window. Even in the corners of the lair. It was an unending, unhappy hallucination, driven by how desperate he was to hear from her. A waking nightmare of sorts. The “no news, is good news” mantra was going to drive him crazy. 

There was one time that was particularly upsetting. Because he had been so sure it was her. 

He’d been picking up the parts of his routine that he could. That included his downtown jogging route. The one that took him from the bunker, where his stuff was, to the loft, where Felicity was. Or back, in the other direction, if needed. They hadn’t moved back in together. Well, they hadn’t moved back in together, officially. Officially their lives were still separate. He’d had his space. She’d had hers. Unofficially, they’d spent almost every night together since Lian Yu. 

They talked. A lot. They talked about Thea, and how she was doing. If there was something specific they could do to help her deal with Malcolm Merlyn’s weirdly noble death. They argued about whether it was better emphasize that he had always loved her, or to make it clear she wasn’t obligated to have any particular emotions about him, not just because he’d gone out on a high note. Oliver was pro love. Felicity was pro holding space for emotional independence.

They talked about Rene and his daughter. Felicity was insistent that the best way to help was just to ensure the physical necessities Child Welfare insisted upon: that Rene’s apartment was up to code, that he had a steady job and paycheck, that all the paperwork for schools and doctors were in order. 

Oliver, on the other hand, thought the best thing to do was to convince Curtis and Rene to become roommates. He argued that it would balance the home environment. That they would keep each other honest. Felicity was against it at first, and it took days for Oliver to get her to admit that she was still shipping Curtis and Paul.

They marveled together at how well Dinah was fitting into the team. One night, after a second bottle of wine, they joked about trying to parent trap Lance and Donna. Felicity was against it because if it worked, then Donna would move to Star City, which was not okay, or Lance would move to Las Vegas, which was equally unthinkable. 

“You know your mother is going to move to town when she becomes a grandmother though right?” Oliver had teased, a bit tipsy.

“No! I do not know that! I’m part of the 1% now. I’m going to hire help.” She'd kicked him, then, lightly, with a socked foot. He'd grabbed it and started rubbing kinks out of her arch.

“Really?” he asked “You’d trust strangers with your baby?”

Felicity rolled her eyes, but also put her other foot in his lap. Massages had to be balanced. “We’ve got the whole background check thing down pat. It can’t be any harder to check the credentials of a Nanny than it is to check the credentials of a vigilante recruit.” 

Oliver had raised an eyebrow at her “we,” but he didn’t comment on it. Felicity blushed and took a sip of her wine.

“I’ve been thinking of Nyssa,” he said, “for William.”

Felicity choked on her drink. “I know I didn’t hear that right.”

“She’s disbanded the league, but she still has obligations to me...” Oliver trailed off, not wanting to finish the sentence.

“As her husband?” Felicity asked, finishing the thought anyway. “You’re going to leverage Nyssa into giving you a divorce, by telling her if she doesn’t, she has to bodyguard William?”

Oliver smirked at Felicity, feeling wicked. “No such thing as a Nanda Parbat, divorce. Till death do us part and all that. But, the law does allow me four wives.”

Felicity pushed at his shoulder with her foot again. “Are you going to set up a harem? Different wife on each continent?”

“Nope,” he caught her foot again, giving it a squeeze. “I’m a one woman man. Luckily, so is Nyssa.”

Felicity squirmed a bit at her end of the couch, and took another sip of wine. “Does Nyssa even like kids?” she asked.

Oliver thought about it and sighed. “In her way.” 

Felicity took another sip and Oliver could see the wheels turning in her head. He fought a smile when she started listing variables out loud. “Pro, she could fight off any bad guy. I can’t see Nyssa changing diapers, but hey, not a problem in this case. She’d probably start training him. I don’t know if that’s a pro or a con. I also don’t know if it’s a pro or a con to make Nyssa the bodyguard of a boy on the edge of adolescence. I mean that’s going to, shall I say, make an impression.” She cocked an eyebrow at Oliver. 

Oliver chuckled. No, actually he guffawed. He let out a full open throated laugh thinking about what Nyssa would do if William developed a crush. Poor kid. 

“Well,” Oliver said, wiping his eyes, “he would definitely learn how to be respectful.” 

Felicity smiled, too. Then bit her lip and cocked her head looking at him tentatively. “Are we talking about William then?”

Oliver met her eyes. He wanted to seem casual and he knew that he probably didn’t. “If you want to.”

She smiled. “I think I’d rather talk about William than you having four wives.”

Oliver chuckled again. “Honestly, so would I.”

Felicity smiled at him put her glass of wine down on the floor. She pulled herself up on her knees and shifted toward him. He watched in careful anticipation as she came closer. Her body finding its way to his side, her hands circling his neck, and her face coming close to his face. “I think I’m good with the idea of Nanny Nyssa,” she said, the words whispering across his lips. “But I don’t believe in sharing husbands.”

Oliver kissed her. He knew that if he gave her a chance to think about what she’d just said, if the tipsy words got back to her buzzing ears, then she’d start to backpedal, try to babble her way out of the idea, the offer. Instead he pulled her closer, a hand in her hair and an arm around her waist. He kissed her with everything he had, trying to trap that word, that thought. _Her husband._

He’d spent the night in her bed. In their bed. And then in the morning, because he knew she was skittish, because he didn’t want to put too much pressure on her, he'd kissed her forehead and jogged back to the bunker. 

No one on the team said anything about it for the first week or two of this new routine. Then everyone found some way to tease them. It didn’t matter. One way or the other, he ended up at her place, or she got “too tired” to cross town and stayed at the bunker, with him. 

The next change had happened when one morning while he was kissing her forehead goodbye. She'd reached out and groggily asked him to pick up breakfast. Coffee and bagels. So he’d added an “extra” loop to his jog. A short loop that took him only two blocks away, to grab breakfast at a corner deli, and come back. 

It was still part of his route. Even though she was missing. He jogged the short route first, circling back for the longer loop through the park that functioned as his real work out. Since she’d been gone, though, since she’d been taken, the short route was messing with his head. That was where he saw the ponytails. Blonde heads appearing in his peripheral vision. Always near the apartment or the deli. Always gone when he looked straight on. Always just beyond his reach.

 _That day._ The worst day. He hadn’t just seen a blonde ponytail out of the corner of his eye, he’d seen her. He was across the street waiting for the traffic light to change. She was standing in profile buying a bag of bagels. He could see her through the big glass windows. She was wearing a short trench coat and electric blue heels. She reached out, bending over the counter to point at the bagels she wanted: onion, asaigo, and sesame seed. Her glasses slipped down her nose a little as she leaned forward and she pushed them back up absently. 

He stopped waiting for the light to change and bolted across the street. A white Corolla pulled his attention for a moment when it almost hit him. He had to jump up onto the hood to avoid a bigger impact. Luckily he’d had his hoodie on, with the hood up. He didn’t stop long enough to talk, or let anyone recognize him, he just kept running across the street. He pushed into the bagel shop yelling her name “Felicity!” 

The room was empty of customers. There was a far door, on the other side of the shop. It was swinging slightly. He darted toward it and pushed through making the bells clatter. He looked both ways and didn’t see her. He looked again, and the people on the sidewalk to his left parted slightly. He could see down to the other end of the block. See a pony tail swishing and electric blue heels. He pinned his eyes to her and chased. 

It seemed like everyone on the street between them was determined to get in his way. A woman with a stroller backed out of a bus in front of him. Oliver dodged. The flower seller tripped and kicked over a bucket of freesia and sunflowers, then he’d knelt down right in the middle of the sidewalk to pick it up. Oliver jumped over him with a hurdler's stride. There were even workmen carrying a frakkin plate glass window, as if this was some sort of cartoon obstacle course. Oliver slide under the bottom edge like a baseball player barely making it to home plate. He finally, _finally!,_ got to the corner and she had already crossed the street. 

He cursed under his breath. She was standing in front of the old Merlyn Global building. It was closed now and the front had been covered with scaffolding as the new owners tried to give it a new identity. She was facing toward him. She was looking back and forth down the sidewalk. It was her. It was absolutely her. He yelled her name again. “Felicity!”

Her head snapped toward him. She smiled. She smiled at him. “Oliver!” she yelled back. Taking a step out of the shadows.

“Stay there!” he yelled at her. Then he started to cross the street again. He was doing his best to dodge the cars. Trying to keep an eye on Felicity and the traffic. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a city bus was barreling down on him and he had to jump back to avoid being hit. The bus rushing past stole her face from him, and when it was gone, so was she. There was nothing on the sidewalk but a determined flock of pigeons. They were tearing through the remains of a bag of bagels. But it didn’t look like a bag someone had just dropped. It was water stained and shredded and looked like it had been there for days. Days of being pecked apart by pigeons. He crumpled the dirty paper into a ball with his fist.

He’d spent the rest of the day combing the area. He went up and down every alley. He broke in and circled the lobby of the old Merlyn Global. He even went back to the bagel shop and demanded all of their security footage. Felicity wasn’t there. She wasn’t in any of the places he looked. She wasn’t on any of the camera footage he reviewed. All he found was himself, running though the store, and down the street like a madman. 

He’d been so sure. 

He'd been sure it was her. That she was signaling him. Asking him to follow. And he did. He chased her swinging trench coat down the street and around the corner. He'd called to her and she’d made eye contact. She’d smiled. She’d called back to him. She had said his name.

“If it was Felicity,” Digg asked later that night, “why would she have run away from you? Why would she have been trying to lead you somewhere instead of just running to meet you? I mean, I remember you guys being on good terms.”

Oliver hadn’t had an answer. Digg sighed and poured them both a shot of whiskey.

“Look,” Digg said, leaning in toward Oliver. “If you are sure then I am willing to go there with you, man. You have some sort of mystical connection and saw her spirit apparition buy bagels and get eaten by pigeons.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Oliver mumbled defensively

“If she was trying to send you a message,” Digg pushed on, “what was it?”

“I don’t know,” Oliver said through gritted teeth. 

“Maybe your brain is still a little rattled from everything you’ve been through and there isn’t a big secret here. Or some giant plot twist waiting to bite you. Maybe you just miss her?”

After two days and a blood test, Oliver finally accepted that he might have been hallucinating. The next time he saw a ponytail, he didn’t chase it. He recited “no news, is good news” in his head, and kept walking though his nightmare.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Text messages aren't the only parcels that can be sent though the internet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! If you have subscribed to this story, I love you. Enjoy!

Oliver was in the mayor’s office. It was one of the few places in his life that held almost no memory of Felicity. Therefore it was one of the few places he could work. When he was working, head deep in a set of clues or toxicology reports, the worry in his chest bothered him less. He’d spent a lot of time at the office in the last few weeks. 

When he wasn’t working, he was usually pushing his body to the point that thinking was limited. Nothing in his head but the crisis in front of him. When there wasn’t a crisis: no crook, no crime, no sighting, or vague lead to follow up on, then he would train until thinking was impossible.

When he couldn't do any of that, he’d fall into a dark stupor. A fugue state of paralysis, where he sat, staring at his phone. His thumb hovering over the play button. All of time and space bottle-necked down the question of if he would listen to her last words to him. If he would let himself experience that moment of _Last._

Oliver was deep in that darkness, sitting on his couch, the bright light of the mid-day sun streaming down around him. He didn’t notice Thea walking into the room until she tapped him on the arm with a long cardboard mail tube. Still lost in his own thoughts Oliver grabbed the tube and jabbed it back at Thea. She had to jump backward a step to avoid having the end of the shipping tube stab her solar plexus.

“See if I ever bring up your lost mail, again!” she said annoyed.

“What?” Oliver asked, his focus finally coming to Thea.

She raised an eyebrow at him and he looked at the tube in his hands. It was a package addressed to him.

“Sorry,” he said to his sister. She gave him an exasperated sigh.

“I don’t know why it was sent to my office instead of yours,” she said.

Oliver looked at the package, the edges were torn and there wasn’t a return address that he could find. “You opened it already?”

“Yeah,” Thea bit her lip. “Usually the mail in my office is my mail. I didn’t look at the address until I saw what was inside, and then you know,” Thea pulled in a smile, “I felt obligated to bring it to you personally. So go on, open it.”

Oliver looked at his sister suspiciously. She was just a bit too eager to see his reaction to whatever was in the tube. He wondered if he should burn the whole thing sight unseen, or maybe take it to STAR Labs. If Thea was setting up a practical joke a secured and sterilized environment might not be a bad idea.

Thea rolled her eyes. “It’s not poisonous. It’s just your embarrassingly cute poster, and I’ve already seen it. So being shy now isn’t going to save you from being teased.”

He tilted his head at her looking confused. Then he popped the plastic cap off the end of the tube and pulled out a poster. It was a kitten clinging to a branch with the words _“Hang in There,”_ typed in black letters across the bottom.

Oliver blinked at it. What in the world?

Thea sat down beside him. She put her head on his shoulder gently. “I miss her too, you know. It’s exactly the kind of message that she would send you. And it’s both kinda sweet and totally, like, weird, that you bought it for yourself. Let me guess it was some middle of the night impulse. A great google confessional. How drunk were you?” Thea asked. “And before you tell me, I am totally going to hang this up in the lair. I’ve already ordered the frame.”

Oliver let Thea’s words wash over him as his breath caught in his chest. Because he hadn't ordered a kitten poster. And it was exactly the kind of message Felicity would send him. And it suddenly occurred to him that text messages weren’t the only parcels that could be sent through the internet. 

He flipped the poster over and examined the back. It was smooth and blank as far as he could tell. He grabbed the tube and studied it again. There was a smudge under a loose _par avion_ sticker that caught his eye. He peeled the sticker back carefully, and there it was, stamped onto the cardboard, a tiny pair of black glasses.

His body was moving before his mind fully caught up. He was across the room tube crushed in his hand as he buzzed his secretary and asked if he’d gotten any packages in the mail recently. She mentioned that the mailroom sorted out junk, but it was closed now, and he dropped the call without letting her finish. 

He was striding back across the room and nearly crashed into Thea when she stood up and got in his face. “What’s got you so buzzed?” she asked.

He pushed her aside and grabbed the poster off the table, rolling it up carefully. “I need to get this analyzed,” he said, “A spectrograph or chemical something, see if there’s a hidden message, maybe a magnetic data strip, or, um,” he stumbled.

“You didn’t order that," Thea guessed, always quick. "So, it’s a secret message? Is it from Felicity? Why the snail mail? That’s just so, low-tech. It's not her style.”

“My guess,” Oliver said, sliding the poster back into it’s tube, feeling his heart pound in his chest, “someone’s been watching her, and she’s found a way around it.”

* * *

Oliver paced across the computer platform as Curtis exposed the poster to a hand held spectrographic wand. An image of a blank white square slowly constructed itself on the computer screen behind him. They’d already failed to find any embedded data strips, either in the poster or the packaging. Curtis had liked the idea of a QC code hidden in the texture of either one, but he hadn’t found anything. 

“You’re going to wear out the floor,” Digg said.

Oliver glared at him. 

Digg shrugged and gave him a half smile in return. “I’m totally willing to spar with you.”

“God yes!” said Curtis. “I mean, it is really hard to concentrate with you breathing down my neck. Metaphorically. This is a lot of pressure.”

A computer across the room dinged before Curtis could elaborate further. 

“What’s that?” Oliver growled, blocking Curtis’s path to the computer and studying the screen.

“Geographic analysis of the shipping route,” Curtis said. 

“If we’ve got a location we should call the rest of the team,” Digg said, coming to attention.

“It’s just post offices,” Oliver said, “and an Amazon distribution warehouse.”

“If MMORPG’s were real, Amazon warehouses would be like dimensional nexus dungeons, full of evil and amazing loot,” Curtis said, automatically.

Oliver glared at him annoyed. 

“Could it be an actual dungeon where they are holding Felicity hostage?” Digg asked unfazed. 

“Probably not?” Curtis replied he wrinkled his nose as his voice rose into a question. 

Digg looked at Oliver. It wasn’t much, but they didn’t have any other leads. 

“Just us,” Oliver said. “For now it’s reconnaissance and we’ll call the rest of the team if we find anything.”

“If we find anything,” Digg retorted “you’ll wait for the rest of the team?”

“I can’t take out this outfit alone. We have to do this smart. For Felicity.”

“For Felicity,” Digg agreed.

“I’ll run comms!” Curtis volunteered. “That warehouse has really basic surveillance. It shouldn’t be any trouble to get into the system. I have experience actually, Felicity and I were doing a little training exercise using it, you know, a while ago.”

Oliver frowned. He remembered that. The memory flashed through his mind suddenly vivid. He'd been on the salmon ladder, with 90% of his focus on the up and down, the flourish in his biceps and core muscles. But there under the clang and the burn were Felicity and Curtis at their computers.

_“If MMORPG’s were real,” Felicity had said, twinkling, “ Amazon warehouses would be like dimensional nexus dungeons, full of evil and amazing loot.”_

_“This is nothing like Warcraft,” Curtis had complained._

_“I could give the guards Orc skins?” Felicity suggested._

_“Augmented reality seems like a bad idea when we already live in a world with metahumans. I mean what if I miss a real fireball because I think it’s a game theory adaptation that you added. Or vise versa!”_

_“Vise versa?” Felicity asked amused._

_“I am not above thinking that we all live in the matrix already.” Then Curtis had started babbling, “I mean honestly, has Digg offered you the red pill? Would you take it? Are you Neo? Am I Neo? I’d be a great Neo. Not that you wouldn’t also be great.”_

_“Okay!” Felicity had said “No more coffee for you! Time for sunshine and some soothing carbohydrates.” Then she’d pulled Curtis away from the screen and toward the elevator. “Oliver,” she’d called over her shoulder, “I have to remind Curtis that we are not all part of a massive VR conspiracy. Want join us for some arrabiata?”_

Oliver felt dizzy. A wave of nausea washed over him and he found himself slumped over and clutching the corner of a desk. 

“You okay man?” Digg asked. “You look green and not in the good way.”

“I haven’t eaten,” Oliver murmured. 

“Why does that not surprise me,” Digg said. Then he pulled out a desk drawer and threw Oliver a protein bar. 

Oliver looked at the packaging trying to remember the last time he’d eaten. He really couldn’t remember. He tried to call up any meal he’d had in the last month and nothing came to mind. He couldn’t remember any meal since before he was kidnapped. That wasn’t right. He must have eaten. He couldn’t have gone for what, 2 months, without eating anything? It was a troubling idea that there were holes in his memory. He’d have to ask Curtis to run more blood tests. Maybe they should send a sample to Caitlin. He unwrapped the bar and took a bit. It was unpleasant to chew and tasted vaguely metallic. 

Oliver was deciding if he should force himself through another bite when Dinah walked in. 

“Hey boys,” she said, “Thea told me you got a lead on Felicity and were about to get yourselves in trouble. I want in. What’s the 411?” She half-sat on a desk and let one foot dangle in the air. 

Oliver totally forgot about his terrible power bar. “What are you wearing?” he asked Dinah.

“Welcome to the softer side of Sears,” Dinah said dryly, opening her arms in a parody of presentation.

“On your feet,” Oliver clarified. “Where did you get those shoes?”

Dinah pointed her toes. She was wearing panda flats. “Yeah, um, I guess these aren’t my usual style. But, you know, a girl can’t live in combat boots alone.” She looked up hopefully, but Oliver just kept staring at her intently. She sighed. “Okay, you got me. It was a lost package. It was delivered to me, but, like, I didn’t order them or anything. I thought maybe it was kismet. Are you going to make me take them back to the post office? I’m sure whoever actually ordered them got a refund or a replacement.”

“Do you still have the package?” Oliver asked seriously

“Um, I put it in the recycling but that hasn’t been picked up yet,” Dinah replied confused.

“Go get it. Bring it back here immediately,” Oliver growled

“They’re just stupid shoes! I don’t understand why you are so upset,” Dinah barked.

Oliver grabbed the poster’s shipping tube and held it up in front of Dinah. He made sure she could see the little glasses stamp. “Those shoes weren’t shipped to you by mistake, Dinah,” Oliver said. “The're from Felicity. She has a pair just like that.” 

Dinah took the tube into her hand, blinking. “Shit,” she said, under her breath, and then bolted out of the room.

Curtis was already on the phone. “Paul, hey babe, can you tell me if any packages were delivered today?”

Oliver looked at him expectantly, hope expanding in his chest. 

“Well, you know,” Curtis said, “I’ve heard slow cookers are revolutionary. Now I can make you dinner even when I’m not home to make you dinner!” Curtis looked at Oliver who closed his eyes and gave him a sharp nod. _Yes. That’s from Felicity._

“The box,” Oliver urged.

“Can you save the box, darling,” Curtis added. “The shipping box? Well, I wanna track -- the shipping. It was a late and I’m working on this new app. One to help manage shopping by mail. Thanks. Love you, Bye. Oh and, um, Oliver and Diggle say 'Hi'.” 

Oliver leaned away from the rest of Curtis’s conversation and looked over at Digg. Digg pulled out his phone and started dialing. 

“Lyla, Sweetie, did anything come in the mail today? Oh really?”

“What?” Oliver asked through gritted teeth.

“Huh? Golf clubs?”

Oliver furrowed his brow. That didn’t immediately connect to Felicity for him.

Digg looked just as confused as Oliver felt, then an idea seemed to occur to him, and he took a deep breath. “The golf clubs aren’t black by any chance are they? I see. Yep. Save it all for me. Thanks.” Digg hung up and, leaned back, crossing his arms and shaking his head slightly. “It’s Felicity, alright,” he said to Oliver. “She sent me a set of black drivers.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When missing messages, remember to check your junk mail.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I'm late! I'm going to try and post two chapters today to make up for it. Things are really starting to ramp up!

“So it’s got to be an analog code. A message hidden in the mail stamps or an anagram in the something?” Curtis mused. All the items had been shipped from different addresses and through different post offices. 

_One Way Or Another,_ was blaring from the computers, because Felicity had sent Rene a Blondie’s Greatest Hits CD. It had been the immediate pick for containing all the hidden data they could want, but so far Curtis hadn’t been able to get anything off of it except 80’s new wave.

“Maybe it’s just Blondie’s way of saying she’s alright,” Rene offered. 

“I still think there has to be a memory stick, or a drive of some kind buried in one of these things,” Digg argued.

“Yeah, because whoever is holding her is letting her mess with stuff before it gets sent out.” Dinah said rolling his eyes. “And no one is dissecting my new shoes.”

“These were all meant to be inconspicuous,” Oliver agreed. “Normal, to anyone that wasn’t us.”

“And it looks like they were all shipped factory direct,” Curtis said, “and according to the online records we all paid for them ourselves.” 

“Felicity could make it look factory direct even if it wasn’t,” Digg argued. 

Dinah ran her hands through the pile of goods and packages on the table: her panda flats, Curtis and Paul's hot pink slow cooker, Digg’s set of black golf drivers, the canary patterned Hawaiian shirt that was sent to Lance, the 1982 Rothschild Petite Sirah she’d sent to Thea, and the empty packaging for Rene’s Blondie CD. Finally, Oliver’s _Hang in There_ Poster.

“Have we hit up every address?” Dinah asked, studying the poster tube.

“Yes,” Oliver replied. 

“Really?” Dinah asked. “I mean she sent presents to everyone’s homes. Everyone except you Oliver. She sent this to your office. No she sent it to Thea’s office with your name on it. That breaks the pattern.” 

“How so?” Digg asked.

“What if she only started sending us things when she couldn’t get through to Oliver? I wouldn’t have known that these panda shoes had anything to do with Felicity. It wasn’t a message for me,” she pointed at Oliver, “it was for you. They’re all for you.” She picked up Captain Lance’s tropical shirt and waved it like a matador teasing a bull. “How would any of us, but especially Captain Lance, have known that this was joke that you didn’t follow through on in Bali?” 

“What are you trying to say?” Oliver asked.

“Have you checked the mail at your home?” Dinah asked.

“Of course,” Oliver replied. He’d been staying the in the Bunker. He didn’t think she’d send anything here. Mail piling up would be a breach of her security protocol. When he hadn’t been in the bunker, he’d been staying with Felicity. After she was taken he’d scoured the loft, more than once, but there was nothing new there. No clues to be found. Only memories.

“Felicity wouldn’t send anything to,” Digg paused, mouth twisted, “his apartment.” 

“Well, she got frustrated enough that she started sending stuff to all of us. Is there a chance anyone’s been intercepting packages before they get to you?” Dinah asked Oliver.

“The mail room, Hoss,” Rene said.

Oliver squinted at him. He remembered vaguely that his secretary had said something about sorting out the junk before it got to him. He also vaguely remembered that they’d redirected mail sent to the campaign headquarters to arrive at City Hall. 

Oliver took a deep breath, feeling a bit shaky. He looked up at Digg who already seemed to know what he was thinking.

“Go man,” Digg said, “We’ve got this part of it covered. We’ll put together a list of post offices and warehouses to visit once the sun goes down.”

>>\------->

Oliver knocked hesitantly on the door of the mail room. He felt like he should remember the name of the woman who ran it. He didn’t. He glanced down at her ID badge, but it was currently backwards. She knew who he was though, and blinked owlishly up at him, the beaded cords that hung from her glasses swaying slightly.

“Hi,” Oliver said at last. “So, um, Thea got a package directed for me--”

“I’m so sorry Mr. Mayor, Mr. Queen, I will speak to the runner immediately!”

“No! It’s not that. That was fine. But it made me think that I might be missing some other packages? I just wanted to check. My secretary said that sometimes thing get sorted out before they get to me?”

“You want to check the junk mail?” She looked at him dubiously, then started fiddling with the lanyard of her id badge nervously. “It’s a lot of well, _junk._ ”

Oliver racked his brain trying to come up with her name, but then her fiddling made her badge flip over. “Just a quick look, Ms. Rummage. I think I can see what I need at a glance.”

“Fine,” she said. “Follow me.” She gave him a look that conveyed her doubt and disbelief. She probably thought he had better things to do. He wanted to tell her that he didn't. He smiled and put his hands in his pockets and stood there stubbornly until she turned around and started walking briskly through the mail room. It wasn’t quite a basement, it had cubicles and computer stations scattered through it. It also had large open spaces with tables and sorting bins. “You know how the system works correct?” Ms. Rummage asked.

“Walk me through it again,” Oliver said. He attempted a bashful smile.

“All mail that arrives at City Hall addressed to the mayor is sorted here,” she pointed at a long table they were passing. “Everything is opened for security reasons. Constituent letters are prioritized and sent up to Georgia in Public Engagement.”

“I know Georgia,” Oliver murmured.

“I should hope so. She responds to everything she can, and sorts out the ones that need your specific attention while also trying to provide an accurate cross section of general sentiment.” She pointed at a string of mail tubs on the other side of the room. “Open records requests go to your Chief of Staff first, then to legal. Mail from city council members also goes to Chief of Staff. Lobbying solicitations go straight to legal, and packages…” She pulled him over to a rolling shelf of boxes, in all sizes and shapes. “These go to the Eileen in Ethics, _if_ she clears them, they get sent on to you.”

Oliver pulled down the handle of what appeared to be a muffin basket wrapped in clear cellophane. Inside was the picture of a young-ish woman with a soft smile. There was note attached that said “You don’t know me, yet, but I know you deserve a good loving woman in your life. Let me help you heal that broken heart.” Oliver pushed the basket back, suddenly embarrassed. Not from Felicity then.

He stepped back and rubbed at the back of his neck. He’d tried to keep his expectations in check, but he had hoped. He had really hoped that he would find another message. Letting his eyes roam over the collection of mail he noticed a rack of identical brown boxes pushed to the back. It was unique in how orderly it was. Not that mail room was sloppy, just that almost all of the mail he’d seen was full of variety: letters and packages in all shapes and sizes. This was basically a solid rolling bookcase of even cardboard bricks. He could see his name printed over and over on perfectly spaced white labels. 

“What’s that?” Oliver asked.

Ms. Rummage rolled her eyes and groaned. “That is a requisitions error that no one has been able to fix. It’s embarrassing. At least it is for purchasing. I’ve just been asked to hold them until they figure it out. Nobody needs that many red bic pens.” 

Oliver furrowed his brow, and walked over to the shelf. He took a box out. It was full of pens. Simple pens. White sick bodies with red caps. His heart stuttered. There were so many boxes. Boxes and boxes of red pens. He closed the box in his hands and looked at the shipping label. The date stamped across it was three weeks old. He gulped. 

She was fighting to get back to him. She’d been fighting to get back to him. She’d never stopped. He was so far behind. No one from the front office had called him. If he’d gotten any of these boxes he would have known it was her. He would have definitely figured it out after a second one. He ran his hand over his mouth and nose, pulling at the scruff on his chin. It was hard to catch his breath. His eyes stung. She had been reaching out to him. He’d wanted a sign so badly he’d had hallucinations. And she’d been sending him packages. She’d been sending him red pens for weeks. They’d built up and he hadn’t noticed. They’d been caught in junk mail limbo. They’d been flagged and kept from him as a requisitions error.

“Ms. Rummage, I think these boxes are related to a...a…” he pressed his lips together. “I’m going to have some one come and pick them up. Tell purchasing to relax. And if any more arrive I want to be alerted immediately.”

“Is something wrong Mr. Mayor? Is this some kind of message? Or threat?” She furrowed her brow at him, but didn’t look scared. It occurred to him that the mail room was used to being the first line of defense against sneak attacks.

“It’s nothing dangerous,” he said. “You don’t need to worry.”

He squeezed the package in his hand and started marching out of the room. He couldn't do anything else here and he needed to do something. Before he knew it, he was alone in the elevator. He realized he didn’t know which way to go. 

He rubbed at his eyes. When had they gotten all weepy? This wasn’t the time to break down. This was the time to double down, to get back to fighting for her. If only she could tell him what to do. If only she had left him a message. 

Oliver cursed under his breath and dug his phone out of his coat pocket. He’d avoided playing her message, because he couldn’t handle a goodbye. But it wasn’t a goodbye anymore. Not if she was sending him red pens. He pressed his thumb down on the screen and Felicity started to talk to him.

“Oliver,” she looked down and away from the camera, her voice cracking. “They have you. They’re hurting you and I can fix that. I know you won’t like it. But there isn’t any choice for me to make. I have plans, I do. I wish I could tell you more, but whoever this is, they know so much. They must have been watching us…” She shivered slightly and exhaled in a whoosh, a huff of breath to build her confidence, “God, I am so nervous. This feels,” she licked her lips, “this feels like the first time you said _‘I love you.’_ It’s that unthinkable. I see the moment so clearly, you and me together,” she paused and looked at the screen deliberately, “Tell me you understand?”


	7. Chapter 7

The words washed over him. How much time had he wasted? She’d set a rendezvous point and he hadn’t known because he was too busy nursing his pain. He raced to the Queen mansion.

Not that it was the Queen mansion anymore. It had been sold a few months ago. Purchased by a generic holding corporation. He’d been expecting a redevelopment permit to come through City Hall at any time. The request to turn his childhood home into a bed and breakfast, or something similar. A politically themed hotel.

The building was locked up and shuttered but he was inside within moments. He knew all the best ways to break into that house. The hallways were quiet. The walls bare except for the ghosts of lost artwork, sun-stained outlines in the wood showed where they used to hang. 

He stood still. Letting the silence settle around him. He didn’t know what Felicity wanted him to find here. So he did what he did whenever entering an unknown environment. He settled into his senses. The most basic reality around him: sight, sound, smell, touch. He even swallowed the air of the house carefully, rolling it against his tongue. It tasted of dust and mildew that had never been there before, and, underneath that, the tangerine cinnamon potpourri that his mother had always loved. 

He closed his eyes and felt the house. 

It didn’t take long before he heard the soft clinking of a keyboard from the front living room. Yes. There it was. The whirl of a computer fan. An expensive, quiet, fan. His heart skipped a beat. Could it possibly be this simple? Had she been burrowed away, so close, all this time? Just waiting for him to watch his damned messages and rush over to find her?

Oliver strode toward the sound. He didn’t let go of his vigilance. Ever since he was kidnapped, hope had been his enemy. Every time things had looked like they might be getting better, something had made it all worse. The packages, the clues, were a run of good luck. Oliver didn’t trust good luck. 

In the middle of the house, he found a complex work station with six screens set up in a cascade. His heart skipped a beat and he approached it slowly. He was so sure that something horrible was about to happen that he was almost relieved when he saw it wasn’t Felicity working the computers. It was Noah Kuttler. That was a piece of bad luck he could swallow. 

“What are you doing here?” Noah asked as soon Oliver stepped out of the shadows.

“Felicity sent me,” Oliver replied. Because it was true.

“Well you can leave,” Noah said waving his hand dismissively. “You had your chance. You wasted it.” 

“My chance?” Oliver asked. There was a part of him that was worried Noah knew about Felicity’s message. That he knew how stubborn Oliver had been in refusing to watch it.

“I’m glad you tried to thwart the prisoner exchange,” Noah said tersely, “but you failed. And let’s be honest, Felicity wouldn’t be in any of this trouble if it weren’t for you. Go back to the Mayor’s office, make a fuss if you have to. Keep looking for your imaginary “Specialist,” and let those of us with some idea of what she’s doing manage this.” Noah’s attention returned to the screens and his hands tapped rapidly on the keyboard.

Oliver narrowed his eyes at Kuttler. “You know something. Has she been in touch with you?”

Kuttler glanced up at Oliver and then back down. “I don’t know enough.”

Oliver walked around the desk and loomed over Kuttler. “Tell me everything, Noah.” Oliver’s voice dropped to a low growl. “Everything.”

Kuttler crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair. His looked at Oliver with a coldly calculating expression. “She’s dead. She’s been dead for a month.” 

“No.” The word tumbled out of Oliver’s mouth. That was impossible. Every fiber of his being denied that it was possible. She’d been sending him pens. She’d sent them all presents in the last week.

Noah raised a dubious eyebrow and looked at Oliver with a sardonic twist of his mouth. “Okay. All the gang _chatter_ is that she’s dead. That the newbies who had her got too rough. They didn’t know what you’d do if you found out, how they’ve been keeping up the charade, you were completely in the dark.” 

“No,” Oliver said again. “She’s not dead.”

Noah snorted. “I came here to unleash everything I had and burn the world, when I got this,” he picked up a graphing calculator from the desk and handed it to Oliver. It was awkwardly large and heavy compared to an iphone. “It’s just like the first one I gave her when she was four. That TI model isn’t in production anymore. And it came to me _here._ ”

“It’s from Felicity,” Oliver murmured.

“How is that possible?” Noah asked. There was a crack in his voice and Oliver softened slightly as the man let his vulnerability slip through his anger.

“She must have faked her own death,” Oliver speculated. “At least enough to escape.”

“She’s a paraplegic. I know they knocked out the implant that makes her legs work. So how? How would she have done that?”

Oliver rolled the calculator over and over in his hands. He’d seen the original. Back when they were first moving in together, he’d stumbled on her box of treasures, the sentimental souvenirs of a lifetime. The objects precious to Felicity tended toward obsolete tech. He didn’t say anything though. He didn’t have an answer for Noah. He didn’t have many answers at all right now.

“We’ve all gotten packages. Gifts,” Oliver mused. That was the thread he was holding on to. Who else but Felicity could have sent them? Who would have known them all? 

“These people, whoever they are. They have eyes everywhere. We can’t trust anything. Maybe they’re just putting out that she’s dead in order to- I- I don’t even know why? To torture us? But that doesn’t mean we can trust that these _gifts_ are from Felicity. It might just be some really brilliant mind game. Twisted but brilliant. They are going to keep us so knotted up we’re paralyzed.”

Noah’s words cut through Oliver. He couldn’t say that the idea hadn’t occurred to him. But it was such a terrible idea. He needed Felicity to be trying to contact him. 

“You know I’m the only one as good as her,” Noah said, looking at Oliver thoughtfully. “You have to trust me, work with me. Don’t run off after any strange signs or symbols until you bring them to me to me first. I’m the best chance you have at telling fact from fiction.”

Oliver considered the offer. Team Arrow had made shadier alliances. Kuttler at least had an honest interest in Felicities safe return. He was about to agree when there was a rustle on the other side of the room.

“Who else is here Noah?” Oliver asked slipping into a fighting stance.

“Nobody.”

A masked figure in League of Assassins gear dropped out of the rafters and landed kneeling before Oliver.

“That’s not possible,” Noah sputtered.

Oliver didn’t bother answering. Noah might match Felicity at computers, but there were other areas where he was distinctly lacking in skills. Detecting league assassins who didn’t want to be found was definitely one of them. 

“Al Sahim, I have a message for you from Nyssa al Ghul,” The assassin said, and held out a red pen to Oliver. Oliver took it, pressing his lips together with worry. In her messages to Curtis and Digg Felicity said she had “leverage.” Maybe she hadn’t meant against the Specialist and his crew. Maybe she’d had a wilder, more desperate plan in mind. One that involved people that could help her fake her death convincingly and then smuggle her out of whatever prison she was in.

“Felicity is with Nyssa,” he said to the masked figure. It wasn’t a question just a thought that was taking too long to process.

“I would have found some trace of her,” Noah argued. “I keep track of the League and it’s off shoots.”

“How is she?” Oliver asked the messenger. It wasn’t even worth arguing with Noah. 

“Your concubine requested asylum, and such was granted by your lady wife,” the assassin responded.

Oliver nodded, accepting the news while Noah scoffed in the background. 

“Concubine? Really?” Kuttler said offended.

Oliver wasn’t surprised that the League would see his relationship that way. He was silently shocked that Felicity would allow it to be characterized like that. But "concubine" was an official status in the world of the League, one that would entitle her to certain protections. He would have told her to do it. He would have done his best to persuade her to use everything she could. To back Nyssa into a corner, to get any protection or help possible, but he would never have expected Felicity to actually do it. She hated that the League thought in those types of outdated ways about men and women. Not to mention they hadn’t even agreed that they were boyfriend and girlfriend again. It stripped something bare in his heart to think that Felicity has asserted she belonged to him anyway. Officially. That even the League of Assassins had to recognize their connection.

“The child has also been officially recognized,” the assassin continued. 

Oliver’s mouth went dry and his brain stopped working. “Child?”

“Your concubine did not inform us that she was pregnant at the time of the extraction, which complicated matters, but all reports are that she has been recovering well.”

Oliver blinked and the world tilted on its axis. There was no way this could be reality. He focused on the assassin in front of him. Everything shrunk down to the single fact that this messenger knew where Felicity was. “I want to talk to her.”

The assassin pulled off her hood and shook out a mass of blonde hair. “You should see the look on your face,” Sara said. “Totally worth it.” She pulled a burner phone out, and handed it to Oliver, “the number is pre-programed.”

“Sara!” Oliver said with relief, wrapping her into a hug. “You’ve seen her? She’s safe? She’s pregnant!?” 

Sara sighed. “Just call her, you doofus.”

Noah scoffed again. “Does Nada Parbat will have cell service? This is obviously and elaborate trap.”

Oliver took the phone and continued to ignore Kuttler. He was right that Nanda Parbat didn’t have cell service. So that meant Felicity was somewhere else. The phone rang half a dozen times, and each one hurt, he wanted to make the connection with every fiber of his body. Then, after what seemed an eternity there was a click, and a breath, and Felicity’s voice.

“Hello? Oliver?”

He exhaled. He took his first deep breath since she had walked toward the Specialist and left him in the mud. 

“It’s so good to hear your voice,” he said. “Where are you?”

“I’m so glad this worked. It’s been hard getting through. Are you okay?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” 

“Not really. I’m not in any danger, but you are. There is so much I need to tell you and so little time.” 

He could hear her typing furiously in the background. That soothed him some. Felicity with a computer had resources and options. Felicity with a computer was a force to be reckoned with. He let go of some of his fears about her immediate safety. Some of them. “The baby,” he whispered. 

Her end of the line went silent.

“How could you know that?” she asked at last. 

“The league messenger told me, but I should have known anyway.”

“Oliver, I didn’t know.”

“But you must have known you were late?”

“I thought it was stress. Wait, you’re keeping track of my cycle?!” He heard a rumble of voices behind her. “Right, sorry,” she said. “Listen to me Oliver we have to get you out of there and we don’t have a lot of options. We’re being watched and if you try to follow any normal route you’ll be blocked. You said it was a league messenger that brought you the phone?”

“It was Sara. Didn’t you send her?”

“Sorta. I didn’t know it would be her specifically. I’ve only got partial control over this. Digg won’t let me fully immerse. Is anyone else there?”

Oliver only understood her last question. “Noah,” he said.

“My father? That’s the avatar it picked? Asshole.” 

Oliver furrowed his brow, he wasn’t sure what Felicity was trying to say. 

“Though maybe that’s not it’s fault,” she continued. “All I seem able to effect are the parameters and its your mind that is working to fill in the details. I would have more options if I was fully inside the system. Why Noah?”

“He’s the only hacker as good as you are,” Oliver said automatically. “Wait, what are you talking about?”

“Do you remember when we watched the Matrix?” she asked.

“Yes?”

“Well we are down the rabbit hole. Nothing is what it seems right now and you are going to have to trust me. Do you trust me?”

“With my life,” Oliver replied instantly.

“Okay,” she took a deep breath. He could already hear her fingers starting to clatter across a keyboard. “In about 45 seconds I’m going to need you to hand this phone over to the thing that looks like my father. Then follow the white rabbit. The Sara. Act normal. _Ish._ ” 

“Let me talk to her,” Noah said. “It’s got to be some kind of trick, Oliver. You have to let me verify this.”

Oliver looked over at Noah. What ever was happening, it was really confusing. But if the choice came down to who to trust when he didn’t have all the facts, then there was no choice to make. “Felicity, Noah would like to talk to you,” he said.

“Huh,” she said lightly, “I guess that could work too. Wait Oliver, has he seen the trojan? I mean Sara?”

“Yes,” Oliver was baffled. That wasn’t uncommon around Felicity..

“Well this should be interesting.” He could almost hear her sitting up straighter. “Ok, I’m ready. Hand the phone over.”

Oliver gave Noah the phone and then glanced over at Sara, but she was staring blankly into the middle distance. It was a look that didn’t belong on Sara’s face. She absently pulled the hood of her league gear back over her head. He wondered briefly if she was wearing a comm and getting a second set of directions. It was at that moment that Oliver tuned back into Noah’s conversation with Felicity. 

“...It fell out of the sky!” he laughed then smirked as he listened for a moment. He started shaking his head "no" even before he’d begun speaking again. “It’s simpler than that. I always learn something valuable. Most people just imagine a walk through all the assets they could use to pay off a ransom. But then most people aren’t the Green Arrow are they! That was something worth knowing right there,” He chuckled. “Honestly, I feel really attached to the whole team.”

Sara tapped his elbow and pressed her index finger to her lip. Asking for silence. He nodded. She moved toward the door, and he followed. Noah was still talking in the background. “I will say that the work you’ve done is amazing. Just the fact that we’re speaking. I thought he was overvaluing you for romantic reasons, but apparently you are that good. Now, if he was right about everything else you’d do for him, then maybe we could organize a trade. I would love to get a peek inside your head, too.”

When they were just outside the door. Sara turned and threw a handful of silver balls back toward Noah. Oliver assumed at first they were smoke bombs, but the little balls didn’t explode, instead they unfurled in mid-air looking for all the world like flying cockroaches. They landed on the console and started eating through the monitors and wires. Oliver blinked, sure that his eyes were lying. The bugs doubled in number and then doubled again and again. They scurried over the computers and then over Noah himself who lifted a hand and looked at the roaches fascinated.

“Clever,” he said. “But if you think this is enough to beat the system you are very, very wrong. No one gets out until I let them out.”

Then Noah’s mask slipped. Or the projection of his face failed and Oliver saw something that looked like a cheesy 1950’s robot. A retro silver skin that had blinking red lights and was ready to shout _“Danger Will Robinson.”_

The robot froze, fritzed, and scattered like a bad internet connection. Then Noah’s sneering face was back and focused on him and Sara.

“Go,” Sara said. “Get to Felicity.” Then she dove headlong into a fight with the robot that looked like Noah.

Oliver turned to toward the front of his house, thinking of his car, and how he might manage to snag a ride on a jet to the Himalayas. When he turned the corner though, he saw another league assassin. She beckoned him and then raced up the stairs and toward the hallway of bedrooms.

Oliver followed. In the upstairs hallway was his bike, the Ducati. The figure gestured that he should get on and he did. He was about to spin the bike toward the stairway, but the figure grabbed the handle bar and pointed toward the window at the end of the hall. 

“That’s suicide,” Oliver said.

The figure pulled back her hood, and it was Sara. Even though Oliver could still hear that Sara was fighting with Noah in the living room. 

“Things here aren’t all that they seem. Red Pill remember. Trust me,” she smirked. “Trust Felicity. You know, deep down, that she’s been setting this up for weeks. Give her the chance to explain everything.”

She held out a comm, and Oliver put it in his ear gratefully.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I also promise that Felicity will explain everything in the next chapter. Even Oliver will be able to understand what's going on. Thank you everyone who's stayed with me so far!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity explains it all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, the big explanation! Here we go!

“Oliver?” Felicity asked.

“Here.” He revved the engine on his bike as Sara stepped back, pulled her hood up and darted back downstairs.

“Okay,” Felicity said. “In a few seconds a delivery van will be outside the window. It will give you the midway boost to get down to the ground safely. Go in 10, 9, 8…”

“I don’t have a helmet,” he said 

“Of course you do.”

“Felicity-”

“Don’t argue with me Oliver. You do!”

And then he did. 

“Now go!” she said.

His back tire skidding out slightly looking for purchase, but then he was barreling down the hallway and breaking through the stained glass. He caught a moment of air before landing on top on a large moving van that was pulled up to the house. There were workmen in white jumpsuits carrying furniture but they barely seemed to register him.

As he got to the end of the truck, he found a smaller mail van and a pizza delivery car lined up at the perfect distances to get him to the ground fast and easy. 

“Head toward the old wall, through the garden, near the wishing-well in the hedge maze” she said.

“It’s blocked.”

“Not anymore.”

Oliver decided not to think about it too hard. He headed straight over the lawn. Through the rose garden, and into the hedge maze. He knew the maze. He’d built the bypass as a kid. His mother had planted over it when he was 15 or 16, but there it was again, waiting for him.

“Over the wall,” she said into his ear. “Then catch the bus.” 

Oliver didn’t give himself time to worry about what she meant. When he popped out of the maze and got to the wishing well, he saw a tree had fallen down. It split the hedge against the wall, and part of the wall. He abandoned the bike, ran up the incline of the tree , and dropped down on the other side. The branches kept him mostly hidden the whole time, including as he dropped to the street. He straightened his shirt and looked down the street to see a bus pulling up to the stop on the corner. He’d always known about the bus stop, Raisa had used it to get to their house for years. Lots of the neighborhood maids did. He just didn’t think about it often. It wasn’t any part of his usual routes.

He walked briskly to the corner and caught the bus.

“There’s a paper bag in the back row,” Felicity said into his ear.

Oliver headed to the back of the bus, found the bag and opened it. Inside there was a hat, sunglasses, and baggy nondescript jacket. Oliver put it all on.

“Wanna see something cool?” Felicity whispered. “Look out the window.”

Oliver did, and to his surprise, he saw himself, in the silver Porsche, with Noah in the passenger seat. The car sped past the bus, changing lanes, and disappeared into the highway traffic.

“What was that?” Oliver asked as softly as he could. 

“That was a very effective decoy.” Felicity said proudly. “Digg is doing an excellent job playing you, by the way. He’s totally got the bad guy monologuing.”

“Does that mean we have time to talk?”

“Some,” she conceded

“Then tell me what’s going on. I am lost.”

“Do you remember when we fought aliens with advanced tech? The kind that could build an alternate reality which could keep someone trapped inside their own head? Well apparently the Dominators left some equipment behind. Dropped it as they fled, and a twisted and evil big bad,--”

“He calls himself The Specialist,”

“That’s a ridiculous name. But whoever he is, he found it and started using it. Badly. He certainly does not have the, ” she paused, “the _finesse_ the Dominators exhibited.”

Oliver thought back to the first kidnapping victims, the ones he hadn’t thought about since he woke up in shackles. He remembered the unexplained brain bleeding and the induced comas, the weirdly clean tox screens, even Jimmy Bamford’s TMZ rant. The one where he ranted madly about someone else being kidnapped. What had he said?

_They said if I brought the money she’d be here! Where’s my girl? Give her back or I’ll kill you! I swear!”_

There was a flash of pain right between his eyes. He felt like he’d been hit with a hammer. What had the specialist said that very first time they talked. _You tell me everything I want to know. As long as you cooperate with me, things will run smoothly. But if you resist, if you fight back, if you lie to me, then everything will go wrong for you. The worst case scenario that you can imagine. Whatever horrors are creeping around in the corner of your mind, they are all going to come true. I have a main line into your cranium here,”_ Oliver rubbed at his forehead _“I will get everything I want, and you are going to help me get it.”_

He thought back to the kid, the one that had been waiting for him in the garage after the press conference, the one who put something into his motorcycle helmet. The wanna-be frat boy who he’d dismissed instantly as not a threat. This time the pain in his head hit so hard it made him nauseous. 

“The Dominator’s illusion wasn’t like this,” Oliver said. He curled his fingers into the vinyl of the bus seat and tried to pinpoint something that could ground him. He tried to remember his last meal. His last bowel movement. The last time he’d run across something that had absolutely surprised him. Something that he didn’t, that he couldn’t, have already known. There was a another splitting pain in his head and felt for a moment like he was going to black out. He clung to the sound of Felicity’s voice as she chatted at him.

“Well, the Dominator’s tried to build a scenario that would make you happy. _The Specialist,_ on the other hand, as far as we can tell, uses the machine differently. He seems to be setting up a general scenario and then letting your brain fill in the details. That way he doesn’t actually have to know anything first. He was using it to make people think they were kidnapped so they’d give up their banking information for ransom. We think he got you as the mayor and didn’t realize that you were the Green Arrow until the program parameters started changing. He calls it “worst case scenario.” The bad things happening seem believable because they are the bad things you imagine. They are what you expect to go wrong, Oliver.”

The pain didn’t stop. It was a continuous throb in his head. There was a warm trickle against his upper lip. He reached up to wipe it away and when he pulled his hand back he saw blood. His nose was bleeding. _Brain swelling,_ he thought. _Permanent brain damage._

“How do I get out?” Oliver said.

“I don’t know.” He could almost hear her biting her lip.

“How much time do I have?”

Felicity didn’t reply. She was scared. He hadn’t mentioned the pain or the nosebleed but she was terrified. He thought about watching Bamford, a baseball player in his prime clutch, his head and collapse in agony. Bamford had been gone maybe two weeks? It had been three months since he’d been let go, since he thought that Felicity had traded herself for him. And they’d said he was missing for two months before that? Not that time couldn’t run differently here. 

“How long have I been gone?” he asked quietly.

“Six weeks,” she whispered. It wasn’t two seasons, the six months that he'd thought had passed, but it was longer than any of the other victims had been missing. 

He closed his eyes and leaned back into the bus seat. He took several deep breaths while he absorbed the idea that the world was upside down and fake. That Felicity hadn’t been kidnapped, that she hadn’t exchanged herself for him. He’d never been rescued. It had just been a turn of the screw, a way to make the situation worse. It had been bad to be kidnapped, but not that bad. It wasn’t that bad until he couldn’t escape. It wasn’t a horrible nightmare until she’d traded herself for him. Worst case scenario. He’d thought, briefly, that The Specialist was psychic. That he was some meta who could see just what he was about to do. But that wasn’t it. The Specialist had been one step ahead of him this whole time because “the man in charge” was Oliver. Whatever worse thing had happened over the last month it had been the worst thing that Oliver could have imagined happening. 

Then Felicity somehow hacked the system and started sending him mail. Those gifts were the only thing that he couldn’t have predicted. That he wouldn’t have predicted. It seemed obvious now that Dinah would never have worn panda shoes of her own free will. 

His head was spinning. As always he started his grounding meditation by just noticing his body, feeling where it sat in space, what touched it. The irony of that occurred to him. If what Felicity was saying was true, all of his senses were lying to him. That was not the rumble of the bus under his feet. It was not the sound of the highway outside the window. There was no smell or diesel, no taste of stale lunches in the air.

Oliver relied on his senses. He relied on the information he got from his body. For the last 10 years his body, his senses, they were the only ally that he’d really had. Sure, he’d been “betrayed” by injury and pain, but then again, his senses had never lied to him about that. He’d had hallucinations, but those always came with a chemical haze, a particular disorientation that he’d learned to identify. Even that other Dominator world, it had _felt_ wrong. Memories had popped through. It hadn’t completely fit him. It hadn’t _been_ him. 

The bus, it felt real. There wasn’t anything that didn’t fit. 

As his mind twisted up into knots it occurred to him that this would be the only way his current situation could get worse. Felicity, missing and in danger, everyone on the team depending on him, and now he was going mad. Hallucinating again. This voice on the comm, he could be imagining it. The things that he’d seen at the Queen mansion were impossible. He was just _seeing_ them. If he couldn’t trust his eyes, why should he trust his ears? That was how it always started right? A voice in your head.

“Oliver?” Felicity asked. “Are you still with me?”

Was he? He suddenly realized that was the choice. He could have reality, or he could have Felicity. He took a slow deep breath. Once he jumped off this cliff he didn’t know if there was any way back.

“With the Dominator’s there was a gate,” he said.

“I’m gonna find it or I’ll make one,” she said fiercely. “But, Oliver, that’s not the only problem. The other problem is that I don’t know where you are. I don’t know what you are going to wake up to. I don’t know how long it will take us to get to you.”

 _Brain damage. Comas._ The thoughts flitted past again.

“How did you make contact?” he asked.

“Well, we found something in your parking spot,” she babbled. “It was inside your helmet. It looked like someone had tried to rip out a device, but then failed or got scared off. I recognized it, blackmailed Argus, got some of the other Dominator tech, and hacked it until I found you,” 

“It was a kid,” he said. “Some college kid. He was smoking a cheap cigarette. I thought he was drunk. I didn’t take him seriously.”

“Okay.” He heard Felicity typing. “That helps.” He could hear a murmur of voices behind her. “Where was the gate last time?” she asked him.

“Smoak Technologies.”

She snorted, and that made it better. For a minute, everything was better.

“Well," she asked "is there a Smoak Technologies this time?”

“I haven’t seen one.”

He swore he could hear her biting her lip. “Where would you put the gate if you were designing a maze?” 

He closed his eyes and thought. It would need to be somewhere he didn’t go. It would need to be somewhere he didn’t want to go. Not like a dungeon that screamed I’m evil and horrible, that would be almost tempting. No. Someplace unimportant, but which he still had an irrational aversion to. An image floated to the front of his mind. Felicity, in the shadows of city scaffolding, melting and disappearing into a flock of pigeons. 

“Merlyn Global,” he said, after a moment. “It’s fortified, booby-trapped, there have to be hidden rooms. It’s not part of my normal patrol.”

“Okay,” she sounded relieved. Hopeful even. “Three more stops and we’ll be there. Let’s storm the castle. I want you home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I tried to set up enough "discrepancies" in the earlier chapters that if you go back you could actually see the clues that this was all coming. But if I got something wrong, let me know! I want it to work even better on the second reading! Thanks!
> 
> Also, I think there are only two more chapters. (Maybe three)


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fight to escape begins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry there was such a lag between posts. I have more control over my schedule now and should be able to get back on track.

Oliver pushed through the revolving door of the old Merlyn Global. The scaffolding had come down and the sign on the building now said Magus, Inc. Not the best pun, but an understandable one. The idea flickered through Oliver’s mind that if everything he saw was generated by his own memories and expectations, then it was his own bad pun. If the executive’s at Merlyn Global had been objectively real they probably wouldn’t have preserved the wizard association at all. It was then that he noticed the moon and star pattern in the tiling on the floor. Just a small step up from Mickey Mouse’s sorcerer hat. He smirked to himself. Turned out the inside of his mind was super corny. 

“First floor men’s room on their right,” Felicity said through the comm, bringing him back to the problem at hand. Oliver followed her direction without question or hesitation. “The handicap stall will have a sign that says 'out of order'.”

Inside the restroom Oliver left the out of order sign on the door, but ripped off the tape holding the stall closed. Inside the stall was his duffel and gear. His mouth twitched into a smile. He barely avoided humming with pleasure. “Is there any heat on the ground?” he asked. 

“Well everything was clear until you asked that,” Felicity responded with irritation. She sighed, “The program is calibrated to you. The problems you anticipate appear. Whatever crosses your mind as the worst case scenario is what ends up happening.”

“Like you trading yourself in as a hostage,” Oliver mused.

“Is that what happened?” 

“It’s what I thought happened.”

“Hmmm…”

“I can hear the wheels turning in your head.”

“Just, you know, considering the parameters of the program, and what it was trying to set you up to do, and um,...” her words trailed off. Oliver could imagine what she was thinking. She was taking a mental inventory of all that she knew about him. The type of suffering he could imagine. The physical torture that layered in scars across his body. The other terrors she had seen him go through. There was a time when Thea dying had been his worst case scenario. There had been a time when Tommy hating him had been his worst case scenario. Or maybe the idea that his Mother was, almost, a super villain. Then, there was always, in the background, Lian Yu. 

He wasn’t entirely sure how she’d handle knowing that now it was her. That losing her was the worst thing he could imagine. 

“Let me write you a happier story,” Felicity said.

“Okay,” Oliver agreed.

“If I tell you something you have to believe it.”

“Always.”

She took deep breath, he could hear how she straightened her back. “A bus load of protesters upset about Merlyn Global’s nuclear energy project has just flooded the lobby. It’s complete chaos out there and the guards are all totally distracted.”

Oliver closed his eyes and pictured it. The stream of people with signs chanting and filing the lobby. The guards overreacting and escalating the situation. If it was as bad as it could be, he’d be able to slink through in full arrow gear without being noticed. He wouldn’t have to do anything sneakier than leaning into the shadows. The again, if what he was picturing was actually going on, then this wasn’t real and arrow gear was entirely secondary. There was no need to protect an imaginary identity in an imaginary world.

“Well,” Felicity said in his ear, “I was thinking sit-in, but an all out riot is good too.”

Oliver threw the quiver over his shoulder, stuck a knife into his belt, and grabbed his bow. Screw subterfuge. 

The lobby was crowded and thunderous. Oliver walked through to the elevators ignoring it all. It ignored him. 

He caught the first elevator available. There was a woman inside. A blonde woman with glasses that wasn’t Felicity. She was holding a stack of files and an order of Big Belly Burgers. He could almost feel how his own thoughts and memories were warping the world around him. Oliver growled at the doppelganger and she scurried out. 

“The exit’s going to be on the top floor,” he said, deciding he was sure of it.

“Well this elevator will get us to the 22nd, which is close but not all the way.”

“I remember.” As soon as he said it, the elevator lurched to a stop. “Got anymore happy thoughts for me?” he asked.

“The A.I. is fighting back,” Felicity grumbled, “but yes, actually, I have a happy thought waiting in the elevator shaft.”

Oliver stood on the safety bar of the elevator, pushed out the ceiling panel and pulled himself up onto the roof of the car. Waiting for him among the pylons was a tablet and a knotted climbing rope. The elevator wobbled beneath him and he jumped for the concrete just as all the safety cables suddenly snapped. He managed to grab the rope, but the tablet got kicked off. The it twisted as it fell, moving in slow motion as it shrank into the abyss. The shaft was longer than 22 stories. It was impossibly deep. 

“I have to admit this is making me kinda nostalgic,” Felicity said, and the buzz in his ear made him smile. “You, me, elevator shafts. I’d say something cute and inappropriate if I could think of it. I can’t ever flirt when I actually I want to.”

“You could just keep saying _shaft._ ” Oliver replied with a grunt as he started climbing the rope. 

“Is that cute or just dirty? Seems mostly just dirty. Like listening to you grunt right now is _just dirty. _Even though I know it's all a simulation, it’s just, you know, familiar from other circumstances. Very different circumstances. Less platonic circumstances.”__

____

____

Oliver pulled himself onto the ledge in front of the door to the penthouse a smile on his lips. “What’s cute is that I can hear you blushing,” he said. 

He’d gotten to the top floor faster than he expected. Felicity’s babble had distracted him. The distance hadn't mattered. He could have climbed forever listening to her babble. He hadn’t been able to think about anything bad happening. So nothing bad had happened. The end of the climb was worse. It meant he had to cut her off and worry about his surroundings again. So, of course, the climb had ended.

He slid along the pylon and then worked the elevator doors open. The hallway seemed empty when he first stepped out into it. Maybe because he hadn’t been calculating all the possible booby traps as he’d made his way up. Anything that was up here though, would have to be subtle. It was a working building for most of the week. That knocked out most explosives or trap guns. If he were setting it up he’d probably go for old fashioned poison darts. Needle sized with compressed air as a propellant. 

An image formed in his brain of the array he would set up. As soon as he pictured it he could hear the slight whirring in the walls. He stepped back into the elevator shaft as just the haze of needles spit themselves from one side of the hall to the other. He regretted not putting on the arrow suit. Armour would be decent protection against most of these shots. Then again, if he'd had the suit on he might have thought of something worse.

“What was that?” Felicity asked. “The program just changed.”

“I thought about the booby trap I’d set up,” Oliver admitted. “If I was a homicidal maniac who didn’t care about collateral damage.” 

“The A.I. is getting faster,” she huffed, frustration clear in her voice. "I'll need to improve my connection. Can you _just_ think of Tribbles?”

“Tribbles?”

“The rapidly multiplying fuzz balls from Star Trek.”

“What?”

“The mental image of a grown man up to his chest in pom-poms is hard to get rid of, but not deadly," Felicity explained.

Oliver closed his eyes and pictured William Shatner under a pile of styrofoam balls wrapped in shag carpet. Felicity was right that he could see it perfectly. For a fleeting moment he was acutely, irrationally, embarrassed. It was one thing to let his darker thoughts spool out into the world. He wasn’t proud or happy about them, but his team already knew he was damaged. Damage was the armor that he wore. Pessimism was comfortable. Planning for the worst had saved his life more than once. It was familiar territory. It was his territory. He owned it.

His hopes were so much more tender and fragile. There was a different vulnerability in letting other people know what he loved. He worried for a second that Felicity had picked up on the Disney designs buried in the architecture of his imaginary Merlin Global. If she had, she would ask about it. Then he would have to explain that Tommy had always loved Sword in the Stone, that they’d watched it over and over as kids. That Tommy once had a dog named Wart and a cat called Archimedes. That those memories of playing knights and ladies at one mansion or another were some of his best memories. His true happy thoughts. She already wanted them to go to Comic Con. She’d probably make them go to a Ren Faire, too. He’d probably love it. He could win her a stuffed unicorn at a crossbow booth. There was flutter in his heart. A hope, a terror, a resignation to the fact that Felicity was going to care about these details of his life, even if she did tease him mercilessly. That flutter was probably exactly what it felt like to be buried up to your chest in Tribbles.

“I’m not going to think of Tribbles,” Oliver said. “I’m going to remember that this is all imaginary and can’t really hurt me.”

"Oliver-"

He stepped out into the hallway as Felicity bit back her warning. They both knew that what happened inside your head could actually hurt you. 

He was two thirds down the hall when the he heard the whirring again. He started running immediately. He could make it. He knew he could make it. Even Malcolm Merlyn wouldn't have darts going off in his own office. Oliver's confidence waned however when he realized the doorway was moving away from him. The elevator shaft, too. The prison that held him wasn’t even trying to seem realistic anymore.

“Close your eyes!” Felicity said into his ears. “Don’t stop running.”

He didn’t understand her order but he followed it anyway. He closed his eyes without slowing down or changing directions.

“Okay,” she said, “you’re through the doorway, you’re safe.”

She was lying. He could tell. But then again, if made the choice to believe her, the system would have to adjust right? He skidded and then tumbled forward rolling to a stop. He opened his eyes. He was just on the other side of the office door as the air-cannons shot off behind him. A flurry of the styrofoam balls wrapped in shag carpet bounced through the doorway after him. The hallway was quickly filled chest high with Tribbles, but only a small cascade of them chased him into the office. It was like a rock-slide had closed the passage behind him, but sillier.

Oliver picked up a ball and sighed. He was never going to live this down. He was way too suggestible. Felicity was going to go out of her way to make sure Thea knew. Oliver couldn’t hide a smile as he thought about the two most important women in his life, sitting around and laughing together. As long as he was in the room with them. If he was there to see it, he'd be happy to be the butt of their jokes.

"It's a really nice butt," Felicity said already giggling a little. Oliver closed his eyes again. She was watching him inside his own head, was it that surprising that she was reading his mind now? No. No it was not.

“Well,” Oliver said to Felicity, “I’m glad we didn’t need that hallway for our exit strategy.”

“There’s only one way out of this,” a masculine voice said behind him. “You have to die.”

Oliver pivoted and quickly had his bow pointed at a lean figure in black league armor. The man had his hood down and Oliver recognized him instantly. His dark hair was cropped more closely to his head then he’d ever worn it before, and he had new scars on his face, but it was unmistakably Tommy Merlyn.

“Luckily, for both of us, the Pit demands that I kill you,” Tommy said, casually drawing his sword.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just because it's all in your head doesn't mean it's not real.

Oliver’s bow string popped and rung out as an arrow flew at Tommy. Tommy knocked it out of the air gracefully, taking a ready stance as Oliver nocked his bow again.

“You're not real” Oliver growled. Oliver cursed his own nostalgia. He’d been thinking about Tommy. About Knights and Wizards and kids. So of course it was was Tommy.

“Just because it's all in your head doesn't mean it's not real, buddy.” Tommy smiled that wry lopsided smile that was all his. “Memories, thought, emotions...oxytocin and adrenaline, love and fear, they’re both just brain sweat after all.”

“The scenario still has to be plausible, right? That’s in the programming. Malcolm would never--”

“I did it,” said a woman's voice. Laurel, or Black Siren, or some combination of the two women walked out of the shadows and stood at Tommy's side. She looked at her dark champion with love and wonder. She ran the back of her fingers gently down his cheek and he kissed the tips when they passed his mouth. “You know I would,” she said turning back to Oliver. “Love conquers all, right?”

Oliver’s mouth went dry, because he did think she would do it. His Laurel had done it for Sara. She might have done it for Tommy if she’d known about the Pit. Black Siren might still do it for Tommy if she found out about the Pit.  
“They’re here because you don’t want to kill them,” Felicity said into his ear. Oliver knew it was true. 

“I would accept other tributes, Ollie,” Tommy said. “I have to kill someone, but you could offer up any number of sacrifices.” He twirled his sword casually. “I actually have one in mind. Darling?” He looked to his Laurel. She smiled, then pulled someone out of the shadows who hadn’t been there before. 

Diggled landed on his knees, shackled. His face was swollen with bruises and blood was running out of his ears. Tommy set the tip of his sword into John’s broad shoulder, just above the collarbone, and then leaned on it casually. Like it was a bar at a party. John huffed and froze stoic and still while blood blossomed through his shirt.

“I know you felt bad about replacing Laurel. Well you eventually felt bad about it. Sort of. Let’s be honest, she was kind-of always your “safety” girlfriend.”

“Tommy!” Laure said sharply.

“Him, babe, not me,” Tommy said giving her a wink and a wicked smile. “I would never take you for granted.”

“No one takes me for granted anymore,” Laurel said. She still sounded irritated, but her mouth was twisting into a half-pout, half-smile. “No one should take you for granted either, sweetheart.”

“Exactly!” Tommy said turning back to Oliver. “I mean did you ever once think about how I felt when you replaced me?” Tommy said, leaning more heavily into Diggle. “I guess I just wasn’t tough enough to keep up with your new crowd, not then, but how do you like me now, Ollie?”

“It was never like that, Tommy.”

“Oliver, bud, remember where we are. If you didn’t think it was true, I couldn’t say it.” Tommy’s eyes got hard. “I’m tired of Original Team Arrow. I want Original Team Ollie back. Let’s go make some mayhem, brother.” Suddenly he pushed on the sword and it drove down through Diggle. Blood started gurgling out of John’s mouth. 

“No!” Oliver let an arrow fly at Tommy and jolted into action. Tommy kicked Diggle off his sword as Oliver charged across the room. Oliver met the downward strike of Tommy’s sword with the shaft of his bow. Tommy turned his swing and Oliver blocked again. 

“Come on Ollie!” Tommy cried. “Let the past and the present combine.” The two men traded blows and blocks. Oliver never got a hit in. Tommy, this Tommy, knew what he was going to do as soon as he did. 

“You can’t get away from us,” Tommy said smugly. He was still fresh, not winded at all. “And you know what they say, if you can’t beat them...”

Oliver suddenly remembered being eight years old and fighting across the lawn with sticks. When he’d won those fights it had always been with the dumbest of tricks. 

“Hey, Tommy,” he said. “Look behind you.”

“I’m not eight Oliver.”

“Yeah, but you aren’t any better at managing the landscape.” He pushed hard into Tommy’s space, making him back up and trip over a random wastepaper basket that was on the floor in the office. 

Tommy landed on his back laughing. Oliver stepped on his sword hand and aimed an arrow at Tommy’s heart.

“And now I have seen my enemy so blinded by emotions,” Tommy said, “That he missed the real threat right in front of him.”

Oliver felt a sharp pain. He looked down at the sword sliding through his chest. He knew the wound. There was no way he could survive it a second time. He turned heavily and saw Laurel smirking. Tommy began reciting the arabic prayer as he got up and circled around. He pulled the sword out and Oliver collapsed to his knees.

“No!” Felicity screamed

She was suddenly wrapped around him. Her chest to his back, her arms around his chest, her cheek pressed to neck, her lips just under his ear. 

“This isn’t happening she murmured. This isn’t real. The program is adjusting around me. It shouldn’t do that. It shouldn’t.”

Oliver felt light headed and detached. She squeezed him again. He felt his heartbeat against her palm. He felt it beat against the pressure of her hug, her head pushed between his shoulder blades, her hands fighting to stop the bleeding to keep his heart in his chest. Her small body clinging to his desperately, determined to hold onto him.

But she wasn’t supposed to be in the room. She was supposed to be far away and on comms. She had been on comms. Her lips at his ear. She’d had his back. She held his heart. And now she was, still. What had been true was still true. 

He took a slow deep breath. He wasn’t sure who else was in the room. Tommy? Black Siren? Felicity was whispering and muttering against the back of his neck. He focused on that.

“This is all my fault,” she said. “The program would have done it’s best to protect you. It wanted you miserable but alive. This is me. I’m the variable. My nightmares. If I hadn’t hacked in---I’m so sorry. Oh my god, Oliver. I’m so sorry. I love you. I love you so much.”

He reached up and put his hands over her hands, to press them against his chest. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Don’t you dare say goodbye to me!”

He twisted and pulled her around in front of him. He held her in his lap and cupped her face.

“Oh” she said, surprised.

He slid his hands up into her hair and pulled her forehead to his forehead. “You shouldn’t be here.” he said. “You should be on the other side of a computer screen.”

She bit her lip and looked at him guiltily.

“What happened to Digg not letting you get in too deep?”

“He’s monitoring my vitals. Caitlin, Cisco, and Curtis are there too.”

“Fe-li-ci-ty…”

“It was the only way. The only way to adapt as fast as the machine. I had to be thinking it. Typing was too slow.”

He put both his hand around her jaw and she held onto his wrists. The wound in this chest threatened to open up again. He realized with surprise that he hadn’t noticed when it had closed.

He kissed her. He raised his chin and caught her lips against his, pulling life and comfort from her presence. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer. His right hand traced down her shoulder and arm to settle, palm splayed, across her stomach. 

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said again, gently chiding her. 

She put her hand over his. “That’s exactly why I should be here, Oliver. Nobody, not god, monster, alien, or madman, is going to bust up this family before it even gets started. And I am hella not doing this without you. If you think a little psychic kidnapping is going to get you out of diaper duty, you are wrong.”

He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He could feel the happy rumble in is chest and the tears welling in his eyes. He squeezed her tighter, settling his ear against her chest and listening to her heartbeat. 

“Awww, aren’t they sweet,” Laurel said sarcastically, leaning on Tommy.

Oliver shifted and put himself between Felicity and the bad guys.

“Kinda makes me want to puke,” Tommy said.

“Really?" Laurel asked snidely "It just makes me want to scream.” 

Oliver wrapped his arms around Felicity’s ears as Black Siren shot a sound wave at them that blasted out the wall of corporate windows. She screamed again and he and Felicity were pushed back to the edge. The streets were small ribbons below them. The noises of the city drifted up tinny and thin.

“I hate heights” Felicity said.

Tommy put his hand on Laurel’s shoulder and pulled her back before she could unleash a torrent of sound that pushed them out the window.

“Ready to give up?” Tommy asked. 

Oliver just glared at him. 

“Maybe he can’t hear me?” Tommy said to Laurel. “I think I need to make it clearer.” Tommy reached down behind the desk and pulled out a large med kit. “Surrender and I will patch you up.”

“You don’t want us dead,” Oliver said. “Either of us.”

“They don’t get it,” Laurel said to Tommy.

“No they sure don’t,” Tommy agreed. 

“Oliver?” Felicity said in a small voice behind him.

He spun and she was holding her palms up to him helplessly, they were covered in blood. He looked her over but didn’t see any obvious injury. She pressed her hands into her belly and it was then he noticed the rivulets of blood trickling down her legs.

“Sound waves go _through_ the body,” Black Siren said. “They shake up anything they find there. That’s just basic physics.”

Tommy patted the med kit and grinned.

Felicity's breath started coming in irregular huffs. Oliver grabbed her shoulders.

“Where’s the gate? Felicity, where’s the gate? This isn’t real. I can get you back through the gate and then you’ll be fine, everything will be fine.”

She looked up at him wild eyed, clutching at her stomach. “I should have seen it right away. I’m an idiot.”

“Felicity, focus.”

“There is no gate. Worse case scenario,” she looked out the broken window. “We have to jump.”

“What?” 

“Pain is bad--”

Oliver’s heart stuttered in his chest. “Breath, Felicity. My chest wound is gone. It’s not real..”

“No,” she said wincing, “I mean yes, the chemicals of pain, the adrenaline, that can be bad for a body even without real injury, phantom injury. But death is the end of the program.” He blinked at her. Not really understanding. “Worst case scenario,” she continued. “We want out of this, we have to jump.”


	11. Chapter 11

“Did I mention that I hate heights,” Felicity said, looking out over the edge of the broken plate glass and down the edge of the building. She gulped and focused back on Oliver.

“It’s just a trick,” she said. “If there is no way to survive then the program go-to loop is broken. This is Basic. I don’t really mean Basic, obviously, this is some way amazing programming language that must be working off neurotransmitter signals, at a minimum it would have to be tracking cortisol levels--”

“We jump. We die. End program,” Oliver summarized.

“Yeah, if we die. I don’t see how we couldn’t die jumping from here, but, hypothetically, if you grappling hook saved us at the last moment we could just end up making everything…”

“Worse?”

Felicity rubbed at her middle absently. “It’s chemical signals. It’s all just chemical signals. If there are enough signals that tell the nerves they are damaged they will start acting damaged.”

“I can’t believe Digg let you do this.”

“One, Digg is not the boss of me. Two, Digg didn’t know. I might have strategically kept him in the dark about certain things.”

Oliver sighed. Felicity was impossible. She was was perfect. His world couldn’t exist without her. 

“We’ll jump,” he said, “and it will be painless. No nerve damage in free fall. I know. I’ve experienced it before.”

“You don’t really think that’s going to work do you?” Tommy asked. He and his Laurel were triangulating around Oliver and Felicity, each stalking to a different side of the window line. Oliver couldn’t put himself between Felicity and both. He couldn’t defend opposite sides at once with her in the middle. And he couldn’t let her go either.

He forced himself to calm his heart rate and steady his breathing. They were still in the matrix. If he started thinking of all his strategic disadvantages they’d be lost. He couldn’t give the A.I. any more to work with than it already had.

Suddenly, Felicity's glasses slipped off her face. She was just standing next to him breathing hard, and they seemed to jump away from her, falling in an arch that that was just too big for her to catch them. Then when they hit the ground, they shattered. Not fell and cracked, or broke at the nose, shattered into tiny shards. Felicity’s glasses were solid cellulose acetate and polycarbonate. Not bulletproof, but they’d certainly survived longer drops without even a scratch.

“Frak” she muttered. Then closed her eyes, bit her lip and started chanting “Think of Tribbles. Think of Tribbles. Think of Tribbles.”

“Hey Babe,” Tommy called out to Black Siren, “Did we remember to pack the EMP?”

“I dropped it in my purse before we left the house,” Laurel replied sounding calm and just barely condescending, like that “perfect” soccer mom.

Tommy gave her a wide bright smile. “You’re the best, I’d forget my own head without you.”

Laurel smiled back. “I do what I can.” 

“Tribbles. Tribbles. Tribbles.” Felicity continued to chant quietly.

Oliver knew he hadn’t thought of an EMP before Tommy had mentioned it. The trouble it could cause was clear to him instantly, but he hadn’t been thinking about it before the simulation brought it up. He felt ice in his heart as he realized that it must be Felicity’s fear. Her idea of what the next worst thing that could happen was. Having her legs knocked out. Needing to be carried. Unable to stand up in a fight.

“They’re lying,” Oliver said turning to Laurel and Tommy. He decided he was right. He put all the confidence in his voice that he could. “It wouldn’t matter anyway this is a dream. I could fly if I wanted to.” He willed Felicity to believe him. To decide to believe him.

Tommy wrinkled up his nose. “That’s not an accurate description. Is it Felicity? This isn’t really a dream. It’s not a free-for-all, it has rules.”

“She thought she was so smart,” Laurel said sarcastically.

“That is kind of her job,” Tommy agreed, his voice dripping with snark. “I mean how many times has she declared herself a genius?”

“Does it matter? It’s always been a lie.”

“Hey!” Oliver said, trying to interrupt, but neither Tommy nor Laurel was paying any attention to him.

“This should be her moment to shine. Her big problem to solve, but computer girl is too slow, and insecure to fight a computer,” Tommy mocked. “She thinks they have to jump out the window! There was a gate last time wasn’t there Oliver? Well marked. Obvious?”

Laurel laughed, full of false sympathy. “Aw, leave her alone Tommy, she’s clearly not any good at obvious. She got accidentally knocked up, after all. And now she’s going to have a miscarriage because she was too embarrassed to tell anyone. That’s like high school level incompetence.”

“Totally high school,” Tommy agreed. “She’s such a malfunction.”

“Stop right now!” Oliver barked. Felicity was tucked behind his arm, her face pressed into his shoulder. Her eyes were still closed and she was still mumbling about tribbles. He couldn’t beat this bizzaro and Tommy and Laurel to a pulp without pushing her away. He didn’t want to push her away. She was trembling. Something deep inside of him said that stepping away from her right now would be the worst thing he could do. 

“So,” Tommy “Oliver totally wants to get Nyssa as a nanny.” Tommy looked over and gave Oliver a sly wink. “You know their married? And she’s completely his type. She talks up being gay, but then again she always calls him “husband.” Maybe she’s flexible.” He wiggled his eyebrows at Laurel and Oliver. 

“Nyssa?” Laurel said cocking her head to the side, “No, Sara should be the nanny. Especially if you are looking for flexibility.”

“Ouch!” Tommy said shaking his hand as if he’d been burned. “You’d really set your sister up to be second fiddle?” Tommy asked.

“Oh come on, Tommy,” Laurel said rolling her eyes. She looked at Felicity furtively “don’t make me say it. I mean, look at her,” this time she gestured openly toward Felicity. “I know you see it.”

“I see it, Gorgeous,” Tommy agreed, “but does he?”

Laurel flipped her hair off her shoulder. “He’ll figure it out eventually.” 

“Figure out what?” Oliver growled. 

“She’s a fraud, Ollie,” Laurel said sweetly.

He furrowed his brow utterly confused. He’d expected some sort of threat. It’s not that he didn’t recognize the mean girl taunting. He’d seen plenty of it in his private school day. But only from the outside. 

Laurel took a step toward him and offered a wide eyed, almost innocent smile. “Felicity pretends to be all rational, someone who makes decision with her head, but she’s just a basket case of daddy issues and abandonment worries. She knows that she can’t really keep up with you. She’s a nearly blind, crippled, weakling. So _dependent._ So _typical._ This whole farce proves that she’s not even that good at the thing she’s supposed to be the best at. If she was, she would have found that gate three weeks ago.” Laurel bit her lip, flirtatiously, “The worst part though, even though she knows you’re going to leave her eventually, she doesn’t even have the self-respect to try and fight it anymore. She just wants to make you happy. So it should be Sara that comes to live with you, because she’s actually capable, and that way, when you get restless and run off with the babysitter, it will at least be someone Felicity approves of,” Laurel shifted her gaze from Oliver to Felicity, “Pathetic.”

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” Felicity shouted at Laurel, stomping towards her. Oliver had to grab her arm and pull her back.

“I think you got under her skin, babe,” Tommy said happily as he draped his arm over laurel’s shoulder

“This is too easy,” Laurel replied crossing her arms over her chest. 

“Yeah she is,” Tommy agreed. He raised a hand for a high five and Laurel met his palm in mid-air. 

“Hey Felicity,” Laurel said, “Catch!” Then she kissed her palm, and blew the “kiss” toward Felicity. It was a focused ray of sound. One with pinpoint precision. It wasn’t a skill Laurel had had, but it was a skill Oliver had always hoped she’d develop. One that he hoped Back Canary would never learn. One that Felicity and Dinah had been talking about and setting up training moduels for.

Felicity let out a grunt and curled forward around her stomach. Oliver caught her and she leaned on him heavily, curling into his chest. 

He needed to get her brain turned to something else. He needed to get his brain turned to something else. She was spiraling. He recognized it. He’d been spiraling. Worst cases were piling up in her brain even as she tried to think of anything else. He could tell he wasn’t far behind

He put his hands on her face and then her shoulders. “Felicity. Look at me, this is important, I have to ask you something,” He took a deep breath. Not quite sure what would come out next. Something that pulled on his brain, that was hard for him to ignore. “Are we real?” he asked.

He could see her brain stutter. She furrowed her brow and looked at his confused. “What? Of course we’re real Oliver, everything else is a simulation. But there is an actual physical connection which makes the barrier between real and virtual a bit gray, and it’s bad for this to be gray, because our lives might depend on understanding the specifics--”

“No. That’s not…” he pressed his lips together and took a breath. “You didn’t want to tell me about Billy because you weren’t sure that it was real. We’ve been dancing around each other, but we haven’t agreed on anything. We haven’t told the team.”

“The team knows.”

“Not the same thing,” He replied shaking his head.

“Oliver, this is not the time--”

He rubbed his thumb across her jawline. “Indulge me.”

She raised her hands in exasperation. “We’re having a baby!”

“I’ve been left out of that before.” The words were cool as he said them. Ice in his mouth.

“Oh!” 

They locked eyes and she stared at him blinking. He waited for her to say something else, but her mouth just hung slightly agape.

He smiled awkwardly. “I know you just told me that I’d be changing diapers, but---

“Of course we are real!” Felicity said, interrupting him. “We are the realist. You are my one and only. My lobster. We have survived everything, including breaking up, I-- You--,” she swallowed holding down her emotions. “We belong with each other. We’re both better, together. I love you. I--, We’re--

He pulled her close and the last of her sentence was muffled in a kiss. He cradled the back of her neck and wrapped an arm around her waist. Then he bent down, swept her up into his arms, holding her in front of him like a princess. 

“We’re real,” he said. “The rest of this isn’t. We can remember that right?” 

She nodded at him, suddenly tentative. He took a step backward up to the window. She was trembling.

“Look at me,” he said. “You are going to wake up surrounded by people that will take care of you. And you are going to tell them about that baby, and you are going to let them fuss over you, because I need to know that you’re are good. I love you, too. I’m going to be back at your side as soon as I can.”

She looked at him and nodded. Then she squeezed his neck and clung to him fiercely. “You better come home safe to me”

“Always.”

He kissed her again, closing his eyes. It was a gentle kiss. And while kissing her, he stepped backward over the ledge, his forearms tightening around her. They fell. The wind rushed up around them and they were swallowed by oblivion.


	12. Chapter 12

Oliver woke up with a gasp. He could still feel the warmth of where Felicity’s body should have been pressed against his. He was lying in a plush torpedo of a coffin. There was something pressed against his skull. He sat up and ripped the contraption off his head. He felt the scrape of its little claws as they pulled out of his skin. Then he looked around. 

He was in a dominator pod. The pod was in a suburban bedroom. Cream and ecru walls with floral window treatments all around. He pulled himself out of the pod and stepped out on the beige carpets. He could feel the grit on his bare feet. The carpet was nearly plastic and the floor hadn’t been vacuumed in ages. There was some abandoned workout equipment in one corner, and a bookcase made out of cinder blocks and planks in another. There were green and white christmas lights on the walls and an empty pizza box abandoned on the floor.

A pain in his forearm pulled at his attention. He realized that he was hooked up to an IV bag of fluids. He pulled the roller closer. The bag had a list of basic nutrients and necessary fluids and was marked for St. Sebastian’s. That was the hospital where Mark Guggenheim had worked before he disappeared. It was where all the previous victims were currently residing in their medical comas. He pulled the line out of the bag and wrapped the excess around his wrist.

Oliver heard garbled shouting. The door of the room he was in was closed. He had a brief flashback to the very first room the Specialist. He took a deep breath. Once upon a time he had felt relieved to be figuring it all out. He didn’t feel relieved, now. Now it felt like he couldn’t know what was beyond that door, and whatever it was, it might be worse than what he had right now. 

He stood up, walked over, and opened it anyway. 

The doorknob turned without any resistance and he looked out into the hallway that was just as beige as the room he was leaving. The sound of someone talking was clearer now. Oliver kept his guard up. He head toward the sound, moving carefully. The slipped down the hallway, passing by framed movie posters for The Boondock Saints and The Hangover. He moved silently down the stairs, unsure of what he would find when he finally confronted his captor.

“Oh my God! Oh my God! That was epic! He beat the game! He fucking beat the game!” The kid was geeking out and pacing. It was the same kid, the one from the parking garage. He was in a horseshoe of computers on folding tables. “I wonder what happens now? Does it reboot?” 

He was wearing his own dominator headband and typing furiously with a slightly drunk, and somewhat determined look on his face. “Get ready to go at it again Green Arrow,” he said to his computer screen. “I am totally going to level this shit up! We’re totally going to throw that pregnancy twist in earlier! Damn, I gotta remember to call TMZ after this. That is a scoop!”

It occurred to Oliver that if this was still the program, he wouldn’t actually be able to land a hit. He would try to punch the kid out and instead he would twist and ankle. Or the kid would have phase out of existence and turn into a metahuman. That would be a simple enough test of reality. He balled his knuckles into a fist and quietly stalked over to the desk. The kid was still distracted with his screen. He grabbed the kid by the scruff of his neck and turned him around to look him in the eyes.

“Hi,” Oliver said, to the boy’s astonished face. “Let’s level this up.” Then he popped the kid with a right jab that knocked him out and left him sprawled limply in his chair. 

That was the moment of relief. The moment when he finally believed that he was home. Back in reality. That meant that there were people he needed to get in touch with.

Oliver rifled through the kid’s pockets, and almost instantly he found a phone. It was locked, but Oliver just picked up the kid’s limp hand and used his fingerprint. It was easy. Life suddenly seemed incredibly easy when things worked the way they were supposed to. He typed in Felicity's number and held the phone to his ear impatiently.

It rang a few times, but she didn’t pick up. That was frustrating. And terrifying. When it slid to her voicemail he hung up and dialed Digg, instead. The phone rings twice before a gruff voice asks “Who is this?”

“Digg” Oliver says, relief washing over him.

“Oliver! Where are you?”

“Suburbia. Felicity?”

“Awake. She’s also throwing her eyeballs up, but Caitlin says it’s not really serious. She needs liquids and electrolytes. How are you man?”

“Better,” Oliver said truthfully. Then a wave of dizziness washed over him and he realized that he might need fluids and electrolytes too. 

“You should hang up and call 911,” Digg said. “Curtis is already pinging this call. We will get there as soon as we can.”

“Okay” Oliver agreed. “But you need to beat the cops and get the Dominator tech out of the spare bedroom.” 

Digg cursed under his breath. “Give me a five minute lead to call Lyla and Argus.”

“Yep. And Digg,” he took a breath, “did Felicity tell you she was pregnant.”

“What!” Oliver could almost hear his eyes popping out of his head. “I would never have let her--”

“I know man. It’s good. Go call Lyla.”

Digg grunted his agreement, and hung up. Oliver hope Felicity would forgive him for ratting her out. He smiled. He’d told her they were going to fuss over her. 

Knowing that the cavalry was on it’s way he decided to finish looking around. There wasn’t much left to the house, but Oliver wanted to be sure that the kid really was the only person involved. He tied the kid to his computer chair. He found a discarded set of scrubs and an hospital Id next to the front door. It had a picture of the kid with the words “Howard Lampe, Phlebotomist,” stamped below.

There was a sketchy couch in the kid’s living room. The brown corduroy was faded and stained in mysterious ways. Oliver sank down onto it when he was sure it was just him and Howard. There was a box of pizza on the coffee table with receipt still taped to the top. Oliver pulled the box toward him. He want the receipt, it would have the address on the delivery ticket. When he touched the cardboard though, he realized that the pizza was still warm. His stomach rumbled at him. He opened the box to find an pristine pie, canadian bacon and pineapple. 

“Figures,” he said, as he picked up a slice and wolfed it down. 

Then he called 911, told them who he was, and gave them the address.

* * *

The house was swarming with helpers: police, medicis, city hall PR.

Oliver was wrapped in a blanket and there was an EMT shining a light in his eyes and looking for any signs of concussion. Oliver was repeated his truncated version of the the story for the third time. “There was something in my helmet. Then I woke up here.”

The kid, Howard Lampe, had been taken away, and Lance had gone with him. Oliver was relatively sure that the kid would rant about Oliver being the Green Arrow. He was also relatively sure that Lance could handle that. 

He heard a commotion from outside the house. Thea’s voice rose above all the clamor. “You are not going to stop me from seeing my brother!”

The EMT quickly had a soothing hand on Oliver shoulder, and a strong suggestion that he sit back down. Oliver ignored it, dropping the blanket and striding toward Thea’s voice.

“Yes, she’s coming too,” Thea said to someone he couldn’t see. “We both know how to handle ourselves around a crime scene.” There was barely a pause for someone else to speak before she started steamrolling again. “You want an alternative! Bring him out here!” 

He turned the corner and saw Thea and Felicity standing just outside the front door. They were being blocked by two cops and a burley EMT. All three of the men were trying to talk to Thea in low calm voices. She responded by rolling her eyes, squinting meanly at them, and speaking louder. 

They probably didn’t know that she could have taken them all out if she wanted. He admired her restraint. He might not have had it if the situation was reversed. Felicity for her part, was standing a step behind Thea, peering past the men in front of her and looking wan.

A few things happened all at once. 

First, Thea stuck a finger in the EMT’s face and pinned him to the doorframe saying “If he’s lucid enough to refuse to go to the hospital then he’s lucid enough to have me kick his ass for it.”

Then, as that EMT moved, Felicity’s gaze shifted and she saw Oliver, emotions flashed across her face. Her eyes filled with tears, even as they crinkled and lifted with a smile of relief. 

Within in a heartbeat,Oliver closed the distance between himself and his family. He wasn’t entire sure if the cops parted for him or if he pushed them aside, but they weren’t in his way long. He wrapped both Felicity and Thea into a hug, one arm around each. 

Suddenly, there was lightening shower of flashbulbs and reporters shouting out asks: Look over here, Mr. Mayor!

Thea came to her senses first. Pushing everyone back inside the house and then far enough down the hallway to escape the cameras. 

“What’s this I hear about you refusing to go to the hospital, Ollie?” Thea asked, putting her hands on her hip and looking up at him definitely. “Do you have any idea what you look like?” 

He didn’t. He hadn’t really cared. But he suddenly thought that he might have to fight Thea to avoid the hospital, and that sounded… exhausting.

He was trying to figure out what he could say to his sister to convince her he was fine, when Felicity reached up and touched one of the scabs on his head. There was a ring of them. A crown of wounds where the machine had bitten into his skull. He wanted to tell Felicity it probably wasn’t as bad as it looked. But he didn’t get the words out. She furrowed her brow and was looking at his body with careful scrutiny. He kinda wanted to crack a bad, dirty joke about it, but Thea was right there.

“You didn’t eat,” Felicity mumbled to herself. “Of course he wouldn’t wake you up to eat.” 

“There was a nutrient bag,” Oliver countered, “and I had a pizza when I woke up.” 

Felicity looked up at him forlorn. Thea raised an eyebrow and gave him a knowing, and even somewhat sympathetic, glare. His sister could do that. It was a skill she’d inherited from their mother.

“So I’ll need to manage my diet and work back up. I’ve starved before. It’s not like I was pregnant or anything.” He regretted the words as soon as he said them. Felicity stiffened beside him, and the furrow between Thea’s brow got distinctly deeper. 

Felicity looked to Thea, “Caitlin is still…” she glanced around, “set up with her equipment. We can take him there. If they’ll release him.” As she turned her head Oliver saw a dark red scab just inside her blonde hairline. It wasn’t as visible as his must be. He didn’t know if anyone else would have seen it. He reached out, compelled to touch it. Felicity winced, slightly, as his fingertips brushed over the spot. 

Oliver wished that he’d hit the kid harder. Maybe knocked a few teeth. That stupid, stupid kid, who’d been playing so recklessly with other people’s lives. There is a certain type of evil that comes from carelessness. It lives in people who think that this is all a game. That life is about “winning.” They aren’t the super villains that want to cause pain and destruction. They’re just people who don’t care if someone else is tortured and destroyed. 

He’d been exactly that kind of careless when he’d asked Sara to sail with him across the Pacific behind Laurel’s back. Ten years later, this was the last lesson he help onto from his father’s sacrifice: You had to be someone who cared about other people. 

How the hell was he ever going to explain any of that to a baby? It had taken a shipwreck, being stranded in purgatory, and five years of crusading to absorb the idea. 

There was a starburst of pain in his head. A blinding white light that brought him staggering to his knees. 

“Oliver. Oliver!” Felicity was calling out to him, but she sounded so far away. 

There was a sting at his neck, Oliver reached up to bat it away. Then someone had grabbed his hands and he didn’t know who. Whoever it was he rolled them over his hip and dropped them to the floor unceremoniously as he tried to get his bearings.

“Oliver!” Felicity said in her loud voice. He turned toward the sound but all the shapes were still blurry. “You have to let me give you a shot,” she said. “Medicine for the nano’s that are probably in your system. You have to hold still. Can you hold still?”

Oliver was panting. He could just feel the blood starting to trickle out of his nose. He managed to nod his head yes, but he couldn’t for the life of him relax. 

“Okay,” Felicity said, “In three, two, one.” The sting was back at his neck. It hurt. He could feel it rushing through his veins with a prickly sensation. The room was still blurry but his head was less foggy. The pain was becoming less bright.

Thea said “I’ll let everyone know that we are taking him to get looked at.”

“Is there a back way out of here?” Felicity asked

“We’ll find one or make one,” Thea replied. Oliver could make out the fuzzy outline of his little sister striding away with determination.

Felicity huddled in closer to him. She was murmuring soothingly, repeating that he was okay, that he was out, that they’d found him, that everything was going to be fine. She reached out to pet his shoulder and he grabbed her hand desperately. Some part of his brain knew that he was probably squeezing too hard, but he couldn’t adjust his grip.

“What do you feel under your feet?” Felicity asked him. He’d explained his grounding meditation to her before and at her prompting he started to go through it. Under his feet and his knees was the nearly plastic carpet full of grit. At his back was drywall. Under his left hand was his own knee. Under his right hand was Felicity’s hand, her hand was on top of his other knee. He could also feel her touch on his shoulder. A kiss. Then her forehead pressed into his bicep. He could smell the coconut of her shampoo. He could smell the sweat of other people in the house too. The clatter of workmen’s boots, a clamour of undifferentiated voices. Then he could hear Thea, her voice pulling above everyone else’s. 

“I don’t care what you think. I know my brother best. We have a private medical facility--No! You look at me! Don’t look at them. Look at me!”

He pulled in a deep breath and felt it moving through his lungs, and then out into his limbs with a tingling sensation.

“So since your death grip on my hand is loosening.” Felicity mumbled, “I’m guessing that means that the meds are starting to work. If I end up with bruises then then you are going to be doing all the dishes. For ever. I need that hand to type. At the very least I want ice delivered and refreshed. I would tell you to bring me wine to, but i can’t have that now, which is also your fault.”

“I can’t do it,” Oliver said.

“It’s done. It’s over. We won. Yes. There will need to be a bit of planned recovery. I’d offer to fatten you up like a good Jewish mom, but I can’t cook, so we’ll hire someone to do that, and--”

“I can’t be around a baby.”

Felicity put a hand on his cheek and turned his face until he was looking at her.

“What in the world are you talking about? You and William--”

“William has already been kidnapped twice. His mother was killed. But a baby?” he didn’t think he needed to explain to her her how much more helpless and vulnerable a baby would be.

“Okay,” Felicity said slowly, “Then we won’t have it.”

“No!” He squeezed her hand hard again.

She cocked an eyebrow at him and waited.

He closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the wall. It wasn’t like he didn’t see his own patterns. He recognized that he tended to push himself away from whatever he wanted most. That he distrusted happiness. He wouldn’t have figured out that he was trapped in a virtual world on his own, because things going wrong felt natural to him. At his deepest level he defined “normal” as bad things happening. To him. To the people around him. And his strategy had always been to minimize the good, but it didn’t actually hurt less to only have bad. It hadn’t actually hurt less to have Felicity gone, traded away to save her life. It wasn’t actually scales. It was just stubbornness. It was just fear. 

He didn’t manage to tell Felicity that. What he managed to say was: “Maybe this isn’t the best time to talk about this. My head is still a little foggy.” 

She snorted. He was still clutching her hand, but she turned her palm over and threaded her fingers through his. “We’re real,” she said. “The rest of this is just….” she sighed, “well it’s just another jump isn’t it. There’s no one else I would jump off a cliff with.”

He smirked. “You wanna jump? I thought you hated heights.” he raised a hand and pushed a lock of hair off her cheek.

She smiled back at him.

“Well if you two are feeling well enough to flirt then it’s really time to get out of here,” Thea said. It felt like she popped up out of nowhere. “Digg’s back with a car and we’ve found a way to work around the cameras.”

Oliver nodded and started pulling himself up from the floor. He was wobbly and found himself leaning against Felicity. He pulled back as soon as he realized it and started to apologize. 

She gave him the stink eye. “Don’t worry,” she said pulling him down again. “I’m sure it will all even out later.”


	13. Epiloge

“I’m not going to pretend to eat baby poop.”

“Did I say party games were optional?” Thea asked

William made a disgusted face and rolled his eyes. 

“Leave the kid alone, Thea,” Oliver said.

“It’s chocolate! And you aren’t even supposed to be here,” she said squinting her eyes at Oliver. 

“You didn’t do any background checks on the caterers,” Oliver retorted. “And their menu was boring.”

Thea pursed her lips in frustrations, and Oliver snorted. Speedy was always cute when she was mad.

“William, come and help me in the kitchen,” Oliver said with a chuckle.

The boy shuffled over and Oliver wrapped an arm around his shoulder. He guided him to the island and once William had hopped up on the stool Oliver pulled a have a dozen chocolate bars out of the cabinet. “These were too good to melt for diapers.” 

William picked up a bar and started fiddling with it. He ran his fingers over the edges of the heavy paper without opening the package. Oliver watched his son, even as he pretended not to watch his son. He kept his hands busy with zesting oranges.

“So,” Oliver said after a minute, “what were you doing when Aunt Thea cornered you. Because last night I know you swore you’d have nothing to do with this, and the only benefit was that you wouldn’t have to share the playstation.”

William blushed and ducked his head. Oliver let the silence roll. The kid was just entering adolescence and he was awkward, and he’d had a terrible year. A really terrible year.   
Without saying anything William reached into his too big coat and pulled out a book. He put it on the counter without saying anything. 

Oliver tilted his head so that he could read the upside down title: “The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Parenting.” 

“I was just going to slip it onto the present table. I mean I thought it was funny, but you know…”

Oliver smiled. He wiped his hands on his apron and picked up the book and flipped through it. 

“I think she’s going to love it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, and two hours after this party I’m commandeering it. For me. I need it. Desperately.” 

William blinked at his father utterly confused. Then he smiled. A sly teenagers smile.

“Yea. You do. You need all the help you can get. I’ll read it out loud to you and provide my expert commentary along the way.”

“Eat your chocolate,” Oliver said. 

William’s smile widened.

# # #

Felicity was sitting with her feet perched up on the coffee table reading the worst case scenario book and giggling. 

“How to discipline an imaginary friend,” she muttered to herself, snorting.

William looked up at Oliver happy and relieved, and Oliver gave the kid a wink.

“Is there something wrong with me,” Felicity asked “or do none of these worse-case-scenarios actually sound all that bad. I mean where’s the chapter on what to do if a supervillain is trying to release a deadly virus in the city. I mean it’s obviously a lot easier to write, get in a Argus mobile command center and don’t stop moving, than it is to actually do it, but getting a little spit up on your shirt is just not the worse thing I can think of happening.”

William had stiffened a little as Felicity rambled and Oliver noticed him stiffening. He frowned a little and bumped her leg with his own. She looked up at him surprised and then followed his line of sight to William. Then she looked chagrined.  
She opened her mouth to say something, probably to apologize, but William beat her to the punch.

“I thought that, too,” he said. “We could probably write our own chapters. How to handle being kidnapped, from billionaires to boats.”

Felicity smiled. “I’ll do, unexpected EMPs that destroy your ability to walk. Or what do when the playstation glitches during your son’s 12the birthday party. That was a real horror show.”

William laughed. “What are you going to write about Dad? There must be hundred of stories you could tell about getting out of terrible situations.”

Oliver took a deep breath. “I think my chapter is probably about how to recognize when you’ve got everything you ever wanted, even though you never expected too.”

Felicity looked at him with soft eyes and a understanding smile, she rubbed her growing belly absently.

William on the other hand, was confused. “Huh? I don’t get it.”

Oliver leaned forward and ruffled the hair on his son’s head. “The way we survive the worst is by grabbing and enjoying the good, whenever we can. Even when it scares us. Even when we are sure why we have it or if we deserve it. Like me getting this moment right now with my family.”

William rolled his eyes. “Geeze, you are so lucky that nobody else knows what a giant sap the Green Arrow is.”


End file.
